Part 15 (1/2)

The second cold war (already in progress) is fought not between foes - but between partners. The extent of economic interests common to the two current combatants far exceeds anything achieved in the high moments of detente between the USA and its previous rival, Russia. This cold war is about markets and cultural dominance - not sheer, projected, military prowess. It is a throwback to earlier days of colonialism and mercantilism and it is laden with historical memories and sensitivities.

The aims are different, as well. China wishes to force the USA to throw open the gates of the global marketplace, currently zealously guarded by the only superpower. The IMF, the World Bank, the WTO are all believed to be extensions of the American economic clout, put to the use of its geopolitical interests. Russia forced its way into the G8 but China has much loftier ambitions. It is not in pursuit of members.h.i.+p in gentlemen's clubs - it aspires to real, raw power. It wants to carve the world between itself and the West. In short, it wants to dominate and to export and it wants the West to help it do so.

In return, it promises regional and internal stability and access to its markets. To convince the West of the quality of its wares, China demonstrates its capacity to destabilize in various corners of the world. It transfers weapons technology, support international terrorism and rogue states and, in general, places formidable obstacles in the path to Pax Americana, the New World Order.

The Americans regard this as a reasonable deal but they wish to reverse the cause and the effect. First, they want to gain unhindered access to the potentially infinite Chinese market and to have the Chinese deliver the regional and international stability they claim to be able to deliver. Only then are they willing to contemplate the coveted prize of graduating to the co-owners.h.i.+p of the world financial and economic architecture.

China is fighting for legitimacy, recognition, access to markets, capital and technology and the ability to reshape the world in its favour. The USA is fighting to check progress of the Chinese on all these fronts. Such fundamental differences are bound to lead to conflict - as, indeed, they have.

In this sense, the bombing of the Chinese emba.s.sy has been an auspicious event because it allowed both parties to break through, to unlock and a deadlock and to make progress towards a fuller integration of China into the WTO, for instance. It also legitimised the airing of grievances against the style and conduct of the USA in world affairs.

In short, it was cathartic and useful.

The Demise of the Client States

The concept of the client states is so well entrenched in our historical consciousness that its demise has been denied and repressed.

There are no longer alliances between powerful political units (such as the USA) and smaller, dependent, satellites. The kaleidoscopically s.h.i.+fting interests of the few remaining global powers dictate geopolitical transigence and ideological transparency. These adaptive processes lead to a myriad of alliances, forever changing to fit the needs and interests of the moment or to cater to future contingencies.

Thus, Russia ignores Yugoslavia's pleas for help, China allows the USA, j.a.pan and South Korea to conduct direct negotiations with North Korea, America bullies Israel into a settlement with the Palestinians (who support Iraq), the UK and the USA impose a peace plan on the IRA, Russia respects an embargo imposed on both Iraq and Yugoslavia and so on. These are the roots of a truly global order. It is also the death knell for rogue and ”insane” states. Devoid of their patronage, these countries are gradually tamed by the awesome twin forces of the global market and international capital and information flows. Iran moderates, Libya surrenders, Yugoslavia succ.u.mbs, the only exception being Iraq.

This is NOT to say that warfare is a thing of the past. On the very contrary. In the absence of the overwhelmingly restraining impulses and impositions of the superpowers - ethnic strife, border skirmishes, the proliferation of weapons of ma.s.s destruction - all are likely to increase. But these are already affairs of limited importance, confined to parts of the world of limited importance, and fought amongst people of ever more limited importance. War marginalizes the warriors because it takes them out of the circulation of capital, information and goods.

Decoupled from these essential flows, warring parties wither and shrivel.

The Convergence of Economic and Military Alliances

The Kosovo crisis started as an exercise in self re-definition. NATO used it to successfully put its cohesiveness to test. It acted sanely and its hypercomplex set of checks and balances and more checks scored an impressive success. As a result, the limited aims and means of the campaign were maintained and NATO was not dragged into either British belligerence or Italian and Greek defeatism. It was the second time in recent history (the first being another multilateral military campaign in the Gulf in 1991) - that a military move did not degenerate into full-scale insanity of carnage and bloodshed.

NATO emerged as a self-restrained, well-ch.o.r.eographed, well co-ordinated body of professionals who go through motions and off the shelf plans with lifeless automatism. While somewhat aesthetically repulsive, this image is a great deterrent. We fear cold-blooded, impartial machines of war more than we do any hot-blooded, sword-wielding fanatic. NATO acted with the famous German industrial efficiency that gave warfare a bad name. It was ”surgically precise”

and civilian casualties were alchemically converted into ”collateral damage”. The well-practised Jamie Shea is an exceptionally chilling sight.

Thus, a policeman was born to police the emerging world of international commerce, true multinationals, boundary-less flows of data and chaotic reactions to changes in local variables. This policeman is NATO and it wields an awesome club. As it chooses which criminals to discipline, it transforms the nature of previously unruly neighbourhoods. For this, at least, we should be grateful.

(Article published June 6, 1999 in ”The New Presence”)

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NATO's Next War

The real, protracted, war is about to start. NATO and the international peacekeeping force against an unholy - and, until recently, improbable - alliance. Milosevic (or post-Milosevic Serbia) and the KLA against the occupying forces. It is going to be ferocious. It is going to be b.l.o.o.d.y. And it is going to be a Somali nightmare.

Why should the KLA and Serbia collaborate against NATO (I use NATO here as shorthand for ”The International Peacekeeping Force - KFOR”)?

Serbia - because it wants to regain its lost sovereignty over at least the northern part of Kosovo. Because it virulently hates, wholeheartedly detests, voluptuously despises NATO, the ”n.a.z.i aggressor” of yester month. Serbia has no natural allies left, not even Russia, which prost.i.tuted its geopolitical favours for substantial IMF funding. Its only remaining natural ally is the KLA.