Inter-imperialist conflict in South Ossetia
Sep 22 2008 11:49
#122
Japan was being squeezed, encircled and provoked by US imperialism years before the war. The war for oil is simplistic and even the IBRP seems to have dropped it several years ago.
Sep 22 2008 11:58
#123
Incidentally, the same method employed by Cleith would lead to an assessment of the European part of World War II being a "war for oil" because Hitler wanted to secure (formerly) Romanian and Ukranian oil fields from Russia. Again, this seems rather simplistic to me.
Sep 22 2008 15:01
#124
Agree entirely with Demogorgon - it's a very good defence of our position,. We have never denied that there are economic motives, only that they are increasingly subordinate to strategic ones. Oil seems a perfect example. Of course one of the reasons for the US drive to control the Middle East and the Gulf is to ensure control of world oil supplies, but if this was done just for the 'oil profits' it would have to seen as a gigantic failure, since the cost of the Iraq war alone far outweighs any profits that may have accrued to individual American companies or the US state.
Sep 30 2008 15:12
#125
I posted a long response to the Baboon-Demogorgon-Alf trilogy of defence of the ICC a few days back before going away for a few days but it seems to have been lost in the ether (undoubtedly due to my lack of acquaintance with the technology of forums).
Briefly we seem to be going in circles here. I entered this discussion to correct the comment made by Sotev when he pointed people towards the IBRP's articles on Georgia but said that he was not sure about the "war for oil" issue. I replied to Sotev and Baboon (who made the comment that the IBRP had held this position since the Gulf War. Now Baboon makes the comment that the IBRP has not held this position for some time!
In the Gulf War the ICC made the criticism that we were focussing on the “price of oil” but we were not. We were arguing that the US’ main motivation was control of the trade in oil (sometimes it suited it to have a high price, sometimes not). The key factor remains that oil is the most traded commodity on the world market and is the most strategic commodity and it is through oil (and other commodities) that the US gets other countries to pay for its crisis. The situation of the dollar as the currency of world trade today is the concern for US policy makers. Since 1999 this has been declining as a percentage of world trade and bit by bit this is weakening US imperialism since it needs the dollars it prints to remain in circulation outside the US. Until recently this was no problem but the decline of the dollar means that even US allies are now delinking their currencies from dollar parity (e.g. Kuwait). What is worse is that what the former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called the “nuclear option” (i.e. those countries like China and Japan which hold massive dollar reserves cannot sell them aggressively even as their value falls sicne that would further devalue their own holdings) is becoming increasingly thinkable and both countries as well as many others including Russia have been gradually offloading dollars whenever they can. None of the other world currencies are in line to replace the dollar but that is not at issue. It is the loss of dollar dominance which will eventually mean that the US will have to start “paying its way” and this can only mean added austerity for the US (and its working class will have to pay just as it will pay for the Paulson bailout of the banking system (the so-called Tarp).
It is a totally new interpretation to me of the ICC view that economic factors played a part in establishing the imperialist set up by today it is military logic which dominates. Previously the ICC said there was no point looking for any rationale in imperialism any longer since we were now in “chaos” and anyone who asserted that there were real economic rationales behind imperialist manoeuvring was labelled a “vulgar materialist”. However it would not be the first time that the ICC has made a subtle shift in the interpretation of its own perspectives so perhaps I should not be surprised. However this new interpretation is to be welcomed because we can at least hold a discussion. If Demogorgon and Alf are now saying that there are economic motives but they increasingly caught up in military strategic objectives we can discuss this. For me the fact is that the increased use of the military by the US is a sign of the decline of its imperial hold on the world. During the Cold War there was no doubt that the US held sway economically and virtually the only thing the USSR could sell was guns (and even here it was a poor competitor with the US). The USSR had to occupy territory to maintain its empire but the US did not have to given the strength of the US economy and the fact that the dollar was the preponderant currency of world trade (the USSR and its satellites had to hide behind non-convertible currencies to avoid being overwhelmed in this area). This began to fall into question with the end of the post war boom and the US was forced to abandon the Bretton Woods Agreement (the lead article on the IBRP English website deals with this more fully) and instead of holding dollars which were “as good as gold” the rest of the world has really been holding segments of US debt. But the fall in the dollar over the last decade or so and the availability of alternatives (non-one laughs a the Euro anymore as they did in 2000) means that US control, via purely economic means is in decline. Hence the increased use of the military not against N. Korea for holding nuclear weapons, and therefore a much more serious strategic threat, but against Iraq where the regime opposed Al Qaida and had been a reliable US ally until 1990. But Iraq had the second largest oil deposits in the world and a leader increasingly trying to find ways of escaping US hegemony (the last being to trade Iraqi oil in euros after 1999).
The fact that the US military adventure in Iraq has backfired and that they are now caught in a double bind (they can neither retreat from Iraq nor attack Iran) is no argument to say that defence of the US economic dominance in the post-Cold War was not the main rationale.
I also find it quite breathtaking for Demogorgon (or was it Baboon?) to deny that the attack on Pearl Harbor was born of the desperation of the Japanese military caste having suffered 4 years of oil sanctions from the US. Pearl Harbor allowed them to get to the oil of Indonesia (or Dutch East Indies) and if the US had not known of it (thus allowing them to send all their aircraft carriers out on “manoeuvres” that Sunday in December 1941) then the Battle of Midway Island only 6 months later might not have destroyed Japanese illusions so swiftly.
However to return the discussion to the original thread the manoeuvrings are increasing and the UPI website (Walker’s World) has some new and disturbing information re Russian imperialism. Sorry I’ve lost the url I sent in my original post. With the world financial meltdown we are in for more confrontation and more useless loss of innocent life.
Sep 30 2008 17:54
#126
Quote:
It is a totally new interpretation to me of the ICC view that economic factors played a part in establishing the imperialist set up by today it is military logic which dominates.
I think this is because your interpretation is faulty. As I said, I have read their press for years and it is not my impression. I hate to say this but many of the critiques that I've seen the IBRP make are based on what they think the ICC says rather than what it does.
This kind of misinterpretation is repeated your response. You say: "I also find it quite breathtaking for Demogorgon (or was it Baboon?) to deny that the attack on Pearl Harbor was born of the desperation of the Japanese military caste having suffered 4 years of oil sanctions from the US. Pearl Harbor allowed them to get to the oil of Indonesia (or Dutch East Indies) and if the US had not known of it (thus allowing them to send all their aircraft carriers out on “manoeuvres” that Sunday in December 1941) then the Battle of Midway Island only 6 months later might not have destroyed Japanese illusions so swiftly."
What I actually said was: "As for the Japanese Pacific War, it was not just a war for oil. Of course, there's no doubting that much of Japanese imperialism was a product of their very poor natural resources. This was one of the reasons for Japan's war with China that begun in 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident. It wasn't until Japan invaded French Indo-China - in order to secure their supply lines in China - that the US began its oil embargo. The oil (and metal) embargo passed in 1941 was certainly crippling to Japan's war effort which was why they planned to take over the Dutch oilfields in the East Indies. The attack on the US was a pre-emptive strike to prevent US counter-intervention."
The attack on Pearl Harbour was thus an effort to prevent an counter-attack that would have otherwise interfered with a strategic objective of seizing the Dutch East Indies oil fields. The attack on Pearl Harbour itself netted no oil - it was a preparation for a larger strategic design in which oil was, indeed, a major factor. I also pointed out that the decision to attack the US (one of apparent suicide) had miltary (defending strategic position of Korea and Manchuria), economic (controlling the resources in those regions), and cultural (the problem of losing "face", the shakiness of the Imperial system). And yet I - or is it baboon? - am accused of denying that oil was a factor at all!
As for the question about the dollar, again, no-one denies that maintaining the dollar as a currency for world trade is a crucial element in the US bourgeoisie's overall global strategy. It's certainly one of the factors behind the current hesitation to introduce the Septic Bank - the increase of the national debt has the potential to hurt the dollar. But the idea that this is the single driving determinant of its whole military strategy seems a bit unlikely to me - if I've understood you correctly, that is. Do you think this motive underscores all the US's imperialist adventures or just Iraq?
Sep 30 2008 18:01
#127
I should also say that I welcome the IBRP's presence on these boards. I hope your contributions can provide another perspective on the left-communist movement and the drive to clarity.
Nov 20 2008 19:30
#128
Actually Milosevic was hailed initially by the US government as a bastion of democracy, praised for his assistance in destroying Yugoslavia and being a "partner" in the US' so called "War on Drugs" among other things. The US regime did support Milosevic.
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Is this really what they say? I've read their press for years and it's not my impression. They say war is irrational from the point of view of the capitalist system as a whole. Certainly war economy (an inevitable product of imperialism today) drains enormous resources from the system. That's not the same as saying individual nations don't have rational reasons for going to war and that these can be both economic and stategic.
They also say that, over time, the economic rationale is subordinated to military objectives i.e. war economy. In this context, wars over resources have to be viewed from a strategic point of view rather than a simple economic one which for capitalism is about profits.
As for the Japanese Pacific War, it was not just a war for oil. Of course, there's no doubting that much of Japanese imperialism was a product of their very poor natural resources. This was one of the reasons for Japan's war with China that begun in 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident. It wasn't until Japan invaded French Indo-China - in order to secure their supply lines in China - that the US began its oil embargo. The oil (and metal) embargo passed in 1941 was certainly crippling to Japan's war effort which was why they planned to take over the Dutch oilfields in the East Indies. The attack on the US was a pre-emptive strike to prevent US counter-intervention. But tension had been rising since 31 when the Japanese invaded Manchuria and the two powers had been preparing war-plans against each since the 20s.
Ironically, of course, Japan's actions in World War II actually demonstrate the ICC's thesis of irrationality quite well. Japan had no chance against a resource rich industrial super-power like the US and many in the government knew it. Yamamoto himself said "I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years". But had Japan accepted the US demands made in the Hull Note, they would have had to withdraw completely from China and leave Korea (at that time a Japanese holding and one which had most of their natural resources) wide open to attack from Russia.
They were also extremely concerned about the stability of Japanese society - a whole series of coup d'etats and social unrest had shaken the Imperial system and many in the government believed the "loss of face" of a submission to the US would so unsettle the people that the whole political system would be threatened.
In other words, actually Japan had no "rational" choice. They could take the road to peace and be crippled as a modern nation, not to mention watch their political system collapse. Or they could go to war against the most powerful economic and military leviathan in the world. Their only real hope was that the US didn't have the will to fight a Pacific War.