6
A GLOBAL UNIPOLAR, ‘ANTI-TERRORIST’SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF ACCUMULATION?*
[5 May 2005] [10am][8,772 words]
Introduction
This chapter examines the fourth part of the contemporary global system of power and accumulation: terrorism and the unipolar/unilateral trend of military relations. During the 1950s and 1960s the United States exerted financial, commercial and production dominance in the world (Wallerstein 1983). This led to the generation of US hegemony (and a military balance with the USSR), which promoted stability and leadership for the (Western) world for two or three decades. Samuel Bowles, David Gordon, and Thomas Weisskopf (1992) and others have seen this system of Pax Americanaas one of the postwar social structures of accumulation (SSA) that provided a foundation for stable growth and development. US hegemony declined in the 1970s as it was defeated in Vietnam, lost a productivity edge to Europe and Japan, and underwent domestic challenges as well. While hegemony promoted national and regional growth and accumulation, the loss of hegemony during the 1970s and1980s had a negative influence on socioeconomic performanceof the advanced capitalist economies with the decline in this SSA.
However, with the advent of Reagan’s starwars program, the first Iraqi war in the early 1990s, decline in Soviet/Russian power, and the more recent unilateralism trend, many have raised the question of a revival of US hegemony, and whether this may promote performance through a new SSA.However, it is also possible that attempts to renew hegemony may actually promote more conflict and instability in the world, leading to a disruption of socioeconomic relations and a heightening of uncertainty. The latter would be likely to lead to less global and regional investment and consumption, especially in areas where such conflict has risen. This chapter examines the dominant contemporary issue of terrorism in association with the US unilateralist trend and the attempt at hegemonic revival.
Specifically, we examine the extent to which current developments in the theatre of developing US unilateralism, first strike capability, “terrorism and the war on terrorism” are promoting global stability and conflict resolution for a newSSA. We start off with some introductory issues associated with terrorism and the so-called war on terrorism. Then four contradictions are scrutinized, including the fact that terrorism elicits major socioeconomic fear and intimidation, technological advances provide greater opportunities for terrorists, deregulation also enhances terrorist actions, and the potential revival of US hegemony stimulates radical Islamic networks. Then conclusions are made about the significance of this for a new global SSA.
Terrorism and the War on Terrorism
Over the past decade, in particular, many planned attacks on civilians and others throughout the world have made terrorism a central concern in the global political economy.[1] The vast majority of these attacks were agents of war. The ‘event’ that ‘changed the world’ was the 11 September 2001 attacks on the WorldTradeCenter and the Pentagon in the United States, which killed around 3000 people. Since then there have been several other such attacks, such as the October 2002 suicide bombing in Bali which killed 202 people, the May 2003 bombing in Casablanca which killed 43 people, and the March 2004 attack on the Spanish train near Madrid which killed 191 people (and injured 1800). These and other attacks are said to be part of a wider, worldwide plan of attack by radical Islamic networks against US hegemony (including its allies) in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.
Of special concern to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida ‘terrorist’ network is the aggression they see the US as having wielded over Islamic nations. For instance, they complain the US has troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, a holy land of Islam. The US has historically strongly supported Israel─ militarily and diplomatically ─ against the ‘Palestinian people’. The US and its closest allies (the UK and Australia) are seen as having invaded Iraq with insufficient evidence of weapons of mass destruction. The UN - with the US at its head (when it supported the UN) - disarmed and then stood by while some one hundred thousand ethnic Albanians were slaughtered in 1998. And a recent ally of the US, Russia, has been trying to defeat (or destroy) the Chechyan Islamic radicals in their bid for independence.
These actions and others have incensed bin Laden and his followers. He had earlier issued a Fatwas to all Muslims declaring a jihad or holy war on the US and its allies:
[W]e issue [t]he … ruling [that] to kill … Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslum who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, [to] … fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,[… and …] fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God. [bin Laden et al 1998:2][2]
After around 3,000 people were killed in the 2001 attacks on New York and WashingtonDC, George W. Bush ordered the Taliban to give bin Laden up to face a military or international tribunal. They refused and in the midst of sympathetic UN resolutions favoring anti-terrorist actions, the Afghan War started in November 2001. The combined air and ground forces of the US, NATO, other nations, plus the Northern Alliance managed to destroy most of the resistance put up by the Taliban, and a more broadly-based Afghan government was able to be installed by February 2002. With elections having been held in late 2004, hundreds of captured Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have been held in GuantanamoBay in Cuba for interrogation for some time now (and some of them are being tried in military courts).
US unilateralism spread as the US government put into practice the desire to strike first before terrorists and/or rogue states attack the homeland again. Then the US and its strongest allies ─ especially the UK and Australia ─ went into Iraq in 2003 to defeat Saddam Hussein on the erroneous pretext of his government having weapons of mass destruction and close association with Islamic terrorists. The second Iraq war has given radical Islamic activists another theatre with which to develop networks and fighting capabilities. Estimates have it that around 100,000 civilians and 1,000 US troops, among others, have been killed in this war. A new, more unilateralist policy has been instigated by the US, under the influence of neo-conservatives, the American Enterprise Institute and others, to rid the world of so-called terrorists, renegade states and the “axis of evil”.
What are we to make of the continuing political-economic significance of these conflicts for the world and its people? Does it represent, as Lawrence Freedman (2001-02) asks, the start of a Third World War that will impact greatly for some years to come? Does it represent, as Samuel Huntington (1996) believes, a major clash of civilizations, Islam and West, which will impact for many decades to come? Or could it be, as Charles Amjad-Ali (2001-02) proposes, a passing phase of the evolution of the world-system where the US seeks a meaningful form of dialogue with Islam? This paper concentrates on whether the theatre in which terrorism and the war on terrorism and rogue states is being played out is contributing to the emergence of a new global SSA, or whether there is too much uncertainty, instability and conflict for this to be happening.
Contemporary Terrorism: Nature and Trends
There are literally dozens of definitions of terrorism posited in the literature, which reveal its multifaceted nature, and lead to difficulties in obtaining consistent statistics. Close to the mark is M.V. Naidu’s perspective that:
terrorism is the phenomenon in which a community is subjected to fear and terror through threats to human well being, and/or through … destruction of life, liberty and property of some individuals or groups [and where the] … targets of these threats and/or attacks are essentially [the] civilian population, … in pursuit of racist, religious, and ideological or political goals. [M.V. Naidu 2001: 2; emphases added]
Usually when people talk of terrorism – as in this definition − they mean that certain actions have been taken by a group to kill, wound, threaten or infect civilians, and which propel fear and intimidation within the social-psychology of a wider population.[3]
Terrorism is unleashed on civilians in many forms. Michael Walzer (2002), for instance, differentiates between revolutionary terror, war terror and state terror; and I would add a fourth, namely ‘cultural terror’. Of course, all four forms could be operating simultaneously, and are often closely related. Revolutionary or ‘political’ terrorism includes the actions of a liberation movement (or its enemies) to force the hands of political leaders to yield on particular issues. Examples include the Irish Republican Army, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Basque Separatist Movement, and the Algerian National Liberation Front. Recently, Islamic radicals are taking vague or very general concerns at a global or regional level as a basis of action. War terrorism is an attempt by a government or army to kill civilians in large numbers during a full-scale war in order to force the opposing army or government to surrender. The classic example is the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US during World War Two, resulting in the killing of over 100,000 civilians and the surrender of the Japanese government.
State terrorism usually includes war terrorism but is supposed to mean the targeting of civilians in peacetime, or the use of a state apparatus in one country to support an army that targets civilians in another. State terrorism in general (including the use of the state for war terrorism) is the most common form of terrorism – the greatest menace - and has elicited the greatest number of civilian deaths (see Sherman 2002). A good example is the destruction of native American culture and peoples by colonial and government armies during the 1700s and 1800s. Another is the attempted extermination of Aborigines in Terra Australas in the late 1700s and 1800s by the British and local authorities; especially through the introduction of smallpox viruses into the indigenous community (see Butlin 1983), and systematic shooting and other means. There is a fourth form of terrorism, what might be called cultural terrorism, where a dominant ethnic (or other) group kills or instills fear and intimidation into members of another group as part of the normal course of life. Usually, though, this requires the support of the state or other institutions such as the Church. Often those who are killed, intimidated or denied due process are looked upon as inconsequential, since they are ‘no better than dogs’; ‘savages’, ‘underlings’, whose life is said to be ‘worthless’. A good example is the lynching of African Americans by the Ku Klux Klan and their associates between the 1870s and the 1950s.
The new radical Islamic terrorism is closely related to other forms of terrorism. Specifically, it is a form of revolutionary terrorism; but it is also done within the context of a global war of radical Islam against the US and its closest allies. It is undertaken in response to what it sees as US state terrorism, war terrorism in Iraq, and the support of reactionary states and/or organized terrorism in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. In order to comprehend the causes of the war on terrorism and the war on US hegemony, it is necessary to study the conflicting tendencies and processes of modern terrorism and the global political economy. Such conflicting tendencies are not simple; they are complex. One has to examine the strategic nature of terrorism, and the major sources of conflict emanating within the global political economy (see Kennedy 1998). Why does al-Qaida want to engage in weapons of mass destruction? Why do they use modern forms of technology? Why are they against US hegemony? Why hasn’t globalization led the whole world to successfully join the club of business networks establishing shareholder value? How can there be different interpretations of Islam? Are the contradictions too strong so that uncertainty, instability and conflict prevents the emergence of a global military SSA?
Contradiction 1: Terrorism − Low Fatality Risk, High System Risk
This paper seeks to critically evaluate the recent terrorism issue on the basis of the political economy notion of ‘contradiction’. Contradiction are positive and negative aspects of a phenomena that are inherently related to its operational dynamics; aspects that cannot easily be separated from it. These inner contradictory dynamics are the forces that lead the phenomena to operate, but also the forces that lead to conflict and instability. It is critical for an understanding of political economy processes to analyze such contradictions, with a view to investigating whether they are capable of being moderated and if so how. This chapter examines four major contradictory dynamics of terrorism in the contemporary environment.
The first contradictory aspect of the inner motion of terrorism is this: terrorism has a relatively low risk of death for specific individuals, yet at the same time it usually elicits a high level of social-psychological fear and uncertainty among the population. Historically, as shown by Table 6.1, below, compared with other risks of death ─ such as car accidents, suicide, murder, tuberculosis and meningitis ─ terrorism poses an insignificant threat to the lives of human beings in the United States and most other places on Earth. The risk of being killed by terrorist acts is infinitesimal compared with these other major causes of death.
Table 6.1 Worldwide Fatalities of Various Sources of
Death per 100,000 Population, 1983-1997
Year / Car Accidents / Suicide / Murder / Tuberculosis / Terrorism1983 / 14.90 / 12.10 / 8.30 / 0.80 / 0.120
1987 / 19.12 / 12.71 / 8.30 / 0.70 / 0.003
1993 / 16.30 / 11.30 / 9.50 / 0.60 / 0.002
1997 / 15.80 / 10.80* / 6.80 / 0.40 / 0.003
Source of raw data: Adapted from Falkenrath (2001:170) * 1996
On the other hand, again historically, the political leadership and general public have a tendency to perceive terrorism as being a critical threat to their livelihood. People under the threat of terrorism tend to systematically overestimate it as a threat to their life and livelihood. This is linked with the greater fear, intimidation, horror and indignity that terrorist actions ─ especially the new form bend on mass killings ─ tend to create in the collective social consciousness. As a result, terrorist threats may create mass uncertainty and fear as people become more inward-looking, or reduce their use of airline travel, or do not go to certain strategic destinations. “According to opinion polling done by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in 1998-99 ─ before the 11 September actions ─ 84 percent of the general public identified international terrorism as a “critical threat” to the United States, more than any other issue. Sixty-one percent of “leaders” identified international terrorism as a “critical threat”, putting it just behind nuclear proliferation (67 percent) and chemical and biological weapons (64 percent)” (Falkenrath 2001: 170). Yet a similarly critical concern for vehicle fatalities or suicide is nowhere in sight, despite the much higher fatalities from these sources.
A paradox, which is implicit in the contradictory ‘multiplier’ effects of terrorism, is that there appear to be an inverse relationship between the social psychological consequences of fatalities and fatality probability or frequency, as shown in Figure 6.1, below:[4]
Figure 6.1 Terrorism Consequences-Probability Trade-Off
Social Terrorism
Fear &
Intimidation
Homicide
Vehicular
Accidents
low medium High
Probability of causing substantial fatalities
There are many reasons for the fact that people are more fearful of terrorist actions that are extremely unlikely to kill or maim them than they are of motor accident deaths, suicide and murder that are much more likely to affect them directly. The first is that people get more fearful from conscious collective acts of killing than from activities that kill as a by-product of something useful, such as driving a car. Secondly, people are more fearful of terrorist acts that seek to kill as a political statement, than they are from many ad hoc killings that may be ‘crimes of passion’ or the isolated acts of psychopaths. Thirdly, people get scared more from a small number of critical fatalities spread over time in specific sites than they do from many more fatalities spread over a larger time period in many locations.[5] And fourthly, rarely does a government seriously stimulate community debate about the nature of so-called terrorism, because they are interested in a military or strategic response and their desire to exploit the short-term advantages of being involved in patriotic fervor.
The general source of this dynamic is that there appears to be no real threat of fatality to the individual in the recent terrorist attacks, since anyone could have been hit, if they were near the source of the attacks. It is not a statistical problem for the individual, compared with other types of fatalities. But it surely is an attack on the system of US hegemony. Hence the general contradiction between individual and society: recent terrorism was unleashed so that there could be socioeconomic crises to upset the US and other economies. Individuals were not targeted, only people who happened to be in or near icons of US capitalism associated with trade (the WTC), finance (Wall Street) and military dominance (the Pentagon); or tourist destinations and areas sympathetic to US interests.
Terrorists take advantage of this contradictory (or paradoxical) state of affairs: that terrorist acts pose a low risk to specific individuals, yet those same individuals feel fear and intimidation, nevertheless, due to social forces. Indeed, this is precisely the reason terrorists use such actions to advance their political or other objectives. It is a high impact action with a relatively low rate of fatality. Or more specific to al-Qaida’s (and their allies’) objectives, it creates massive fear and intimidation with relatively low cost for putting into operation. Hence al-Qaida were able to ‘produce’ a high cost of death and destruction (‘social costs’ to the US) ranging from estimates of $60billion to $1trillion (Homer-Dixon 2001: 58; Luke 2001:141).