US Swimming Against the Tide

Interesting argument made by Tom Nairn over at openDemocracy about how America is trying to counter the force it helped usher in, and so breathlessly lauded, during the 1990s: globalization.

America’s Middle East strategy is often presented as a new expression of globalisation as well as the prosecution of a neo-imperial foreign policy. It may be the second. But it is not automatically the first. US global policy and globalisation are no longer two aspects of the same thing. In fact, the Iraq war may represent the most serious blow against globalisation as it has begun to define itself since the end of the Cold War, by offering the world an expanding, democratic process of greater economic and cultural openness.

What the assault aims to do is drag this process backwards, under ‘Western’ (but really American) leadership. Its aim is to force an awakened American nationalism into a more decidedly imperial mould — which can only be done by ‘old-fashioned’ techniques. Barbarians must be reinvented, to keep Homelanders together, to prop up a half-elected President, and to re-align restive or dissident satrapies. With all its shortcomings and contradictions, globalisation had been showing signs of escaping from US Neo-liberal hegemony over the past few years. Tragically, it is believed in some places that a ‘good war’ will help to rein in such trends, by establishing a new kind of empire-boundary, namely an apocalyptic (and by definition unceasing) fight against Terrorism.

This effort stands no chance of long-term success; a fact unlikely to influence the policy makers in Bush’s Washington. Their attempt to harness, rein in and control globalisation is embedded in their current Iraq policy – whether this remains limited to the subordination of the United Nations (UN) to the White House and an inspection process designed to humiliate Saddam, whether it results in his swift downfall, or concludes in a desperate battle and widespread violence.

Also check part 2, part 3, and part 4 of Nairn's essay.