Immanuel Wallerstein • 2002 | Center for a World in Balance

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Immanuel Wallerstein - 2002

Immanuel Wallerstein is a sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst.

Wallerstein began as an expert of post-colonial African affairs, which he selected as the focus of his studies after an international youth conference in 1951, and which his publications were almost exclusively devoted to until the early 1970s, when he began to distinguish himself as a historian and theorist of the global capitalist economy on a macroscopic level. His most important work, The Modern World-System, appeared in three volumes in 1974, 1980, and 1989.

Wallerstein rejects the notion of a Third World, claiming there is only one world connected by a complex network of economic exchange relationships — i.e., a world-economy or world-system, in which the dichotomy of capital and labor, and the endless accumulation of capital by competing agents (historically including, but not limited to, nation-states) account for frictions. This approach is known as the World Systems Theory.

The 21st Century - The Next Six Months (1 January 2002)

The next six months are a particularly dangerous time - for the United States, for the world. What is the state of the U.S. "war on terrorism" now that we have entered the 21st century? At one level, the U.S. government has achieved some of the objectives it set itself after Sept. 11. The U.S. has overthrown the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It has done this using almost exclusively air power, and with absolutely minimal cost of U.S. military lives. There is a new coalition government in power in Kabul, one that for the moment does the bidding of the U.S. The U.S. has achieved this without any serious objection from any other government - not those in Europe or the Far East, not Russia or China, and not most of the governments in the South.

Nor has there been any real objection to its policies from the U.S. public. Quite the contrary. Bush's policies, and most importantly the military success, have been hugely popular. Hence, the immediate political prospects of the Republican Party (Congressional elections are coming up in November 2002) have improved somewhat. To be sure, Bush has not managed to get bin Laden "dead or alive," and the likelihood of doing this seems to be diminishing daily. And if Bush fails in this, it will tarnish his image, no doubt.

The U.S. hawks, as we discussed in Commentary 79, see the present situation as the opportunity of a lifetime, and they are pushing hard to capitalize on it. They may currently be getting the support within the U.S. administration of those whose sole concern is winning the next election. A wartime Bush may seem to these political managers to be a greater vote-getter than a Bush struggling with an economic recession. So the possibility of a military strike in another zone (Iraq and Somalia are the most frequently mentioned) has become a real one, high on the agenda of Washington debate.

On the other hand, many things are not going so well for the U.S. A fourth India-Pakistan war seems to be breaking out. The Indians are saying that if the U.S. has the moral right to use warfare to combat terrorism, they have the same moral right. Washington is squeezed between the logic of the Indian case and the fact that, if there is a real war, Pakistani troops will move from the Afghanistan border to the Indian border. And then all real hope of stanching the flow of Al-Qaeda elements from Afghanistan into Pakistan will evaporate. Furthermore, under such conditions, if bin Laden really is in Pakistan, the Pakistani government is not going to risk civil strife by turning him over at a moment of Indo-Pakistani combat.

And what will bring the Indo-Pakistani war to an end? In the past, it was the Soviet Union that was the peacemaker. But if it isn't stopped rather quickly, what will happen inside Pakistan? Let us remember that one of bin Laden's objectives has been to bring down the Pakistani government. So the U.S. is wringing its hands, but does it have any real cards to play?

Then there is the little matter of Argentina. The country is in de facto bankruptcy, thanks to a combination of greed and the rigidity displayed by the U.S. Treasury and the IMF. Perhaps the economic impact of this collapse on the rest of Latin America and the world-economy can be contained. But will the example of a revolution led by the middle class be contagious? In any case, the Argentine fiasco will certainly strengthen the hand of those persons throughout the world who wish to defy the crazier edicts of the IMF.

Let us not forget Israel-Palestine. The situation has never been so gloomy, in terms of any hope that there could be a political arrangement in the short run that would calm down tempers. Israel has a government in power that clearly is not interested in any such arrangement, not even interested in the creation of a Palestinian state. And the hawks there have also seized the moment to force the U.S. and the Labor Party to abandon almost totally the idea of a real political deal with the Palestinian Authority, that is, with the Palestinian people.

So, the U.S. and the world have three quite explosive situations on their hands simultaneously, in none of which can U.S. military power play the least role. The U.S. is reduced to diplomacy, and frankly the Bush administration is not terribly good at diplomacy, because they lack the prime requirement, an ability to understand where the rest of the world is coming from.

In such a situation, what can the U.S. do? One of two things: either not very much, hoping for the best; or what the French would call a fuite en avant, striking strongly in some new direction in order to distract attention and energy from the multiple crises. And here the hawks have their proposal - bomb Baghdad. (I cannot take too seriously the idea of going into Somalia, since what would the U.S. do there, once it went in?) And if the U.S. bombs Baghdad seriously, can they pull off the surgical victory they have just achieved in Afghanistan? Most unlikely. Not only is Saddam's army a more serious one than that of the Taliban, but there is no equivalent of the Northern Alliance. Furthermore, the immediate neighbors will be most unenthusiastic about such a U.S. endeavor. Turkey stands to risk the emergence of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq, with all its impact on Turkish internal politics. Saudi Arabia risks an internal upheaval if it allows its bases to be used. Yes, Iran will be happy to join the U.S. effort, which will make Saudi Arabia hysterical. Ah how the wheel turns!

As for the rest of the world, let us look at the latest Pew poll of world elites. Pew interviewed leaders in business, government, media, etc. in France, Germany, Spain, U.K.; Poland, Russia, Ukraine; Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela; Bangladesh, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines; Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan; Nigeria, South Africa. They found that while 50% of U.S. elites favor going into Iraq, only 29% of the others do, and this consistently across the world. They found that while 70% of U.S. elites describe the U.S. as acting multilaterally, only 33% of the others do. They found that while only 18& of U.S. elites said that U.S. policies caused the attacks of Sept. 11, 58% of the rest of the world think so (the lowest percentage being found among those in western Europe, where merely 36% think so). And finally, a whopping 70% (evenly spread across the world) think it is good for the U.S. to "feel vulnerable."

So the U.S. hawks do not exactly have a glowing endorsement from the elites of the rest of the world (not to speak of from more ordinary people). And they do not have unqualified endorsement at home in the U.S. A good portion of the U.S. military do not believe that overthrowing Saddam Hussein will be a piece of cake. Maybe the U.S. public is at the moment no longer as taken with the Vietnam syndrome as before Sept. 11, but I think the U.S. military is not over it. They don't want to fight a long, draining war which they know will lose them U.S. public support, a war without clear and precise political objectives, as they often say. And by and large, U.S. multinationals are very wary of the economic and political consequences of hawkish behavior.

Still, it's now or never. The next six months will be the moment of decision. And there are a large number of unpredictable elements. Will there be further significant terrorist attacks? Will there be further sudden economic collapses? Will the Afghan government hold together? So this is the moment of acute danger. If it passes, then we can begin to worry about the next five years.

Immanuel Wallerstein

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

The 21st Century - The Next Five Years (15 January 2002)

The next five years are crucial ones for the geopolitical position of the United States. In Washington these days, they apparently think that all the significant decisions about the next five years are being made in Washington. Washington's program seems to be the assertion of U.S. military invulnerability everywhere. The present U.S. government believes that, once this is established, the basic economic interests of U.S. enterprises will thrive, and that attacks on U.S. citizens and installations will come to an end - that is, that the U.S. will once again be invulnerable.

The fact is, however, that three kinds of basic decisions are being made outside the United States, and each can affect Washington's self-interested scenario quite drastically. The first is being made in Europe. The launching of the euro currency has been incredibly smooth, to the surprise of many people. Indeed, it has gone so well that now Sweden and Denmark will probably join in 2003 and Great Britain in 2004. At that point, others will clamor to join the euro-club, although they may not be admitted immediately.

This has both economic and political consequences. The economic consequence is that the euro will become a world reserve currency alongside the dollar. The fact that the dollar has been the only reserve currency since the ending of a fixed dollar-gold ratio 35 years ago has been of enormous economic benefit to the U.S. and has permitted it to live far beyond its means. The geopolitical consequences of having a second reserve currency in the world seem obvious. Financial dominance has always been the last stronghold of an erstwhile hegemonic power.

Can Europe be derailed? Maybe, but at this point it would be difficult. The European Union (EU) has decided to hold a Convention to engage in the revision of its cumbersome structure. It has confided the leadership of the preparatory work to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who is probably the ideal choice for the job. He believes in his task; he has prestige throughout Europe; and he has great political and diplomatic skills. He is unlikely to be intimidated by the U.S. government in pursuing his task. What Europe needs to do, obviously, is to create a structure that has a minimum of two features - a politically responsible central decision-making authority; and the end of national vetoes of basic decisions.

No doubt, this will take a lot of hard negotiations, as each government, fearing being outvoted in the future, seeks to use its present power in the EU to preserve its long-run interests. But strengthening the EU structure is quite doable, and the atmosphere is quite favorable at the moment. The odds are that, in five years, there will be a restructured EU, and one that has enlarged itself as well. For the first time, furthermore, the East/Central European states will come to believe that being part of the EU is more important and more useful to them than being part of NATO.

The second major locus of decision-making is in the world market. While I do not believe that the "market" is some magically autonomous entity, I do believe there are limits to the ability of particular states, even ones as powerful as the United States, to control what will happen. The big question is whether the present recession will be a passing blip, ending within a year, or will turn into a significant world deflation, lasting at least five years.

Everyday, the newspapers across the world are publishing the views of government officials, bankers, economists, and other assorted pundits. I have been reading a lot of these opinions in the last year, and all I can say is that they go in every conceivable direction. There is no consensus whatsoever. For what it's worth, I think we are much more likely to see a serious world deflation than to see a quick resumption of stock market inflation. If this is right, everyone will feel its effect. The question for the Triad (the United States, EU, and Japan) is not whether each will feel it, for this is obvious, but how each will do relative to the other.

I suspect the U.S. will fare the worst, for two reasons. One is that the U.S. boom of the last decade was based, more than that of any other part of the world, on the psychology of confidence about the future. And once that confidence is pierced, I believe that the pendulum will swing more in the U.S. than in Europe (which in the past decade didn't show the same kind of irrational confidence), and Japan (which has had a decade to shed its own psychological folly).

The second reason is those "underlying economic variables" to which economists like to point. It is always being said that the U.S. is particularly strong in this regard. I do not believe it, for one central reason. I consider that the U.S. sustains the largest drain on its capital accumulation by the size of its "cadres" and the income levels of its top managerial strata. Europe and Japan are far leaner in this regard. If there is a serious deflation, serious cuts will have to be made in this domain. And the political consequences of "demoting the yuppies" will wreak havoc with the U.S. political system.

Then there is the third arena of decision-making - the poorer regions of the world. By this, I mean essentially everywhere outside the Triad, including South Korea and Taiwan, including India and Israel, including Brazil and Mexico, including Canada. For all of them, Argentina is the face that haunts them today. Will we see cacerolazos in other countries? Let me remind you what has happened in Argentina. As "collateral damage" of the world economic downturn, Argentine workers are hungry and unemployed, and the Argentine middle class is justifiably terrified that all its savings are disintegrating (a bit like the pensions of the employees of Enron). It is this combination of despairs that has created the volatile and almost anarchic situation in Argentina today.

If it were just a matter of Argentina, the U.S. would shrug its shoulders, and so would the world. (Actually, that's what seems to be happening at the moment.) But this sort of upheaval is contagious amidst an economic deflation. Indonesia might be a good next location for such a development in terms of its economic situation. And the political consequences are most unpredictable, not least in Indonesia. Everywhere that such breakdowns occur, we shall probably have a populist upheaval whose character (left or right) may be unclear, at least at first. We may get military coups, of uncalculable stability. We may get governments clinging to power by dictatorial means that are ugly. But whatever we get, we will surely not find ourselves in a world free from "terrorism."

So, actually, the picture looks fairly gloomy from the perspective of Washington. Washington has not yet woken up to that.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Porto Alegre 2002 (1 February 2002)

In 1971, the grand neo-liberal offensive against the gains that had been made by the world's populations in the post-1945 period was launched symbolically (and to some extent really) by the convening of the first Davos conference. Davos was to be a meeting-place of the powerful of the world - heads of major corporations and banks, political leaders, key figures in the media - to consult with each other, create the proper rhetoric, coordinate strategy.

By the mid-1990s, it seemed amazingly successful. The principal Soviet regimes had been dismantled, the historic national liberation movements discredited or diminished. The rhetoric of development (not to speak of that of socialism) had been replaced throughout the world by the rhetoric of globalization to which, it was said, there was no alternative. The world's communist parties had become social-democratic parties, and the world's social-democratic parties now espoused a market liberalism that was only mildly watered down from that espoused by conservative parties.

The forces of Davos pushed ahead full force. And suddenly they ran into trouble. The secretly-discussed Multilateral Accord on Investments, which would have made national legislation restraining foreign corporations illegal, was scuttled in 1998, in part by French opposition. The following year, at Seattle, an unexpected coalition of environmentalists and the U.S. trade unions demonstrated so vigorously against the launching of a new trade round by the World Trade Organization that WTO could not proceed. And this was done primarily by U.S. demonstrators. There followed then a cascade of demonstrations: Quebec, Nice, Gothenburg, Genoa - all successful.

And then came the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2001 - 15,000 persons from around the world, from all kinds of organizations, to insist that "another world is possible." The press of the western world remained skeptical, but the people of Davos were troubled. They decided to move their meetings to safer places - to Doha in the United Arab Emirates for the World Trade Organization, to a remote Canadian mountain location for the G8, and to New York City from Davos for the World Economic Forum.

The attack of Sept. 11, 2001 served the interests of the forces of Davos well. Large-scale demonstrations, with their risks of violence, seemed threatened by the accusation of terrorism. The well-protected Doha meeting of the WTO relaunched world trade talks. But now, almost five months later comes Porto Alegre II. This time, the advance figures were that 50,000 persons would come. This time, the world's press is paying more attention to Porto Alegre than to Davos, except of course in the U.S.

It is a moment to take stock. What have been the strengths of the anti-globalization coalition? The first is that it has demonstrated a breadth and depth of popular support across the world which makes it clear that there is indeed an alternative to the neoliberal agenda of the forces of Davos. Sept. 11 seems to have slowed down the movement only momentarily.

Secondly, the coalition has demonstrated that the new antisystemic strategy is feasible. What is this new strategy? To understand this clearly, one must remember what was the old strategy. The world's left in its multiple forms - Communist parties, social-democratic parties, national liberation movements - had argued for at least a hundred years (circa 1870-1970) that the only feasible strategy involved two key elements - creating a centralized organizational structure, and making the prime objective that of arriving at state power in one way or another. The movements promised that, once in state power, they could then change the world.

This strategy seemed to be very successful, in the sense that, by the 1960s, one or another of these three kinds of movements had managed to arrive at state power in most countries of the world. However, they manifestly had not been able to transform the world. This is what the world revolution of 1968 was about - the failure of the Old Left to transform the world. It led to 30 years of debate and experimentation about alternatives to the state-oriented strategy that seemed now to have been a failure. Porto Alegre is the enactment of the alternative. There is no centralized structure. Quite the contrary. Porto Alegre is a loose coalition of transnational, national, and local movements, with multiple priorities, who are united primarily in their opposition to the neoliberal world order. And these movements, for the most part, are not seeking state power, or if they are, they do not regard it as more than one tactic among others, and not the most important.

So much for the strengths of Porto Alegre. Now for its weaknesses. Its strengths are its weaknesses. The lack of centralization may make it difficult to coordinate tactics in the more difficult battles that are ahead. And we shall have to see how great is the tolerance among the many interests represented, tolerance of each other's priorities.

And if taking state power is not the primary object, then what is? So far, the forces of Porto Alegre have been fighting mainly defensive battles - stopping the forces of Davos from pursuing their agenda. This is important, useful, and has been more successful than many would have predicted a few years ago. But soon this will begin to seem not enough. There will have to be a serious positive agenda. The Tobin tax (to fight speculation in capital flows), eliminating tax shelter arrangements, canceling Third World debt are all useful proposals. But none is enough to change the fundamental structure of the world-system.

What the forces of Porto Alegre need to do more clearly is (1) to analyze where the capitalist world-economy is going structurally, and what are its inherent weaknesses; and (2) begin to outline an alternative world order. In a sense, the world left is back to where it was in the middle of the nineteenth century, with this one advantage. It has the experience of the wisdom and the errors of the past 150 years behind it. So another world is possible. But it is by no means certain.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Davos vs Porto Alegre: Game Two (15 February 2002)

In 2001, for the first time, the World Social Forum met at Porto Alegre at the same time as the World Economic Forum met at Davos.(1) The world press did not take Porto Alegre very seriously in 2001. And neither did many of the world's progressive movements, who failed to show up. This year it was very different.

One might have thought that the effect of September 11 would have been to destroy the anti-globalization movement, or at least to intimidate it, and in October of 2001 there were many who thought this would be the case. But by February, 2002, everything had changed. Porto Alegre II had at least 50,000 participants, multiplying by at least four the number who came in 2001. And the surprise was that the U.S. delegation, rather tiny in 2001, was the fourth largest in Porto Alegre. The atmosphere at Porto Alegre was sober, analytical, and at the same time festive. It was a serious conference, and the world press took it seriously. The process of organizing an elaborate and comprehensive counter-program to that of Davos and the old Washington consensus is well under way.

Meanwhile, thanks to the Office of Research of the U.S. Department of State, we have a splendid survey of non-U.S. press reaction to the World Economic Forum in New York. First, the State Department's key findings: "Overseas editorial reaction to the World Economic Forum was dominated by criticism of the U.S. and doubts about the merits of globalization. In a shift from the positive coverage of free trade following Doha, the focus was on the failures and negative consequences of globalization. Secretary Powell's remarks on 'waging war' on world poverty received a few nods of approval, but overall, editorials portrayed the U.S. as insincere about correcting 'global inequalities.'"

Nor was this the world left press from the countries of the South. The very first excerpt is from the "conservative" (the State Dept.'s designation) Times of London: "Is America about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? To judge by the incoherent paranoid mood of the World Economic Forum in New York, American politicians, businessmen and media commentators appear to be on the brink of a collective nervous breakdown." Italy's "leading business" daily, Il Sole 24 Ore is quoted as saying "The gap in the relations between the U.S. and Europe is widening again, on both the political and economic levels." The "centrist" Irish Examiner observed that "speaker after speaker at the World Economic Forum lambasted America as a smug superpower." France's leading conservative newspaper, Le Figaro headlined its story on the Munich NATO meeting "Europeans growl at the United States."

Meanwhile, the Financial Times (of London) headlined its report on Porto Alegre on Feb. 5 "Serious ideas behind the theatrics." The subheadline was "Anti-globalisation lobby has recovered its momentum." On the same day, its report from the World Economic Forum in New York was that: "This year, the mood was far more subdued....In today's uncertain world, Davos no longer provides answers."

What seems to be happening? Three things: First, the United States is beginning to overplay its hand badly. It is getting the backs up of even its former best friends. President Bush was apparently so surprised and shocked at the tone of a letter he received from Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, that he wrote a very appeasing reply, in effect backing down from some of the positions his senior associates had been taking publicly. When the U.S. is being openly criticized by the British Secretary-General of NATO (former U.K. defense minister), Lord Robertson, things are not going as well as planned and expected. Europeans (and of course almost everyone else) are by and large quite upset by the speech about the "axis of evil." This opposition won't slow down U.S. armaments expansion but it may slow down the intent to use them.

Secondly, the anti-globalization movement, the spirit of Porto Alegre, is trying to go beyond demonstrations and defensive actions to put forward credible alternative propositions, and to mobilize world sentiment for them. Porto Alegre still has a long way to go to attain the political weight it needs to impose its views. But it has moved beyond the gadfly phase. And this year, Davos tried to sound like Porto Alegre - a far cry from the rhetoric of the 1990's. Imitation is, they say, the greatest flattery.

The great uncertainty is the attitude of the world political center. Basically, they have been totally involved in Davos, and most of them still are. But I met at least one former Prime Minister at Porto Alegre who told me that, normally I would go to Davos, but this year I decided to come see what Porto Alegre had to offer. He did not seem unhappy with what he found. U.S. liberals are still intimidated by the impact of Sept. 11. But for the first time, after the "axis of evil" speech, a member of Clinton's cabinet, Madeleine Albright, openly criticized Bush's foreign policy. And the Europeans are manifestly beginning to feel the need to assert themselves more strongly. That is what the State Department's report of the world press shows.

The politics of the world-system is still in uncertain evolution in the coming few years. The world economic situation will play a big role. And it is still possible that U.S. hawks (and Israeli hawks) will do something dangerous. But if the forces of Porto Alegre do nothing more than put their shoulders to the wheel they should do very well in the decade to come.

1. See my Commentary No. 57, Feb. 1, 2001, "Davos vs. Porto Alegre? World Soccer Cup?".

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Why Nato? (1 March 2002)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created on April 4, 1949, joining together twelve "North Atlantic" countries. It was in the immediate sense a response to the Berlin blockade which the U.S.S.R. had instituted on June 24, 1948. It was more broadly the central Western military structure during the Cold War. One might therefore have thought that, with the end of the Cold War, NATO would have been dissolved. But far from it. NATO not only continued to exist, but it has taken in new members, countries that were formerly part of the Warsaw Pact, which was the prime antagonist of NATO during the Cold War.

So we need to ask why? What purpose does NATO serve? What is it intended to do? The answer depends upon whom you ask. There are four major actors in the continuation of NATO as a structure: the United States, the other states that were members during the Cold War (15 by 1952), the new members and prospective members in east and central Europe, and Russia. Each of the four has a different perspective, and a different set of motivations.

Let us start with the Western European states. When NATO was founded, they saw it as military protection from what they considered to be a potential military threat from the Soviet Union. They saw it as a way to ensure that U.S. troops would be stationed in Europe and that the U.S. would be committed to join them immediately in using their military in case of an attack, or even of a military measure like the Berlin blockade. To be sure, there were persons and movements in all these countries who were hostile to, or at least unenthusiastic about, NATO: Communist parties, pacifist movements, and some others. But one can say that the clear majority of the populations in these countries strongly supported the NATO treaty.

There were some complaints. The governments of those countries with colonial possessions felt that NATO should be extended to cover their colonial territories. But the United States categorically refused, not wishing to commit its military power or even its political support to the struggle of European states with national liberation movements. NATO was defined as strictly limited to European/North Atlantic area conflicts. During all this time, the U.S. insisted on having a U.S. military officer as commander-in-chief of the NATO forces, and this seemed acceptable to west Europeans, as both reasonable and as a guarantee that the U.S. would remain committed to the treaty.

As western Europe became stronger economically and politically, and began to construct the European Union, the idea of a European army began to be seriously discussed. France and Germany committed themselves in 1987 to this objective. The United States was distinctly cool on the whole idea. While it did not voice absolute public opposition, it did whatever it could to slow down and/or sabotage the idea. And it certainly insisted loudly that any West European force should somehow be "integrated" into NATO. With however the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and then of the Soviet Union itself in 1991, efforts to construct a European army began to take off.

The U.S. position engaged in two measures designed primarily to make sure that no independent European army would come into existence. One was to invent a role for a European force within NATO: the Europeans were to be the "peacekeeping" force, once presumably the war had been won (by the United States, primarily). This concept would be implemented in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and now to some extent in Afghanistan. The Europeans were thus to have the dirty, unpleasant, but in the long run not that important, task of "clean-up" which the U.S. found politically unpalatable in terms of its own public opinion.

And NATO would be "expanded." Why was this important? Against whom was the alliance arming now? The inclusion of East/Central European states in NATO (already the case with three of them and in process for many others) was designed to achieve two things. It was to make far more difficult, if not impossible, any politico/military alignment of the West Europeans with Russia. This is the principal geopolitical nightmare of the U.S. It is more immediate than the other nightmare, the growing military might of China.

Secondly, it was to make West European politico-cultural unity more difficult by intruding reliably pro-American elements from East/Central Europe into the decision-making structures of the European Union. Once NATO expanded, the European Union was pressured to "expand" immediately also, and in the same way more or less. Such expansion would not only complicate enormously Europe's ability to construct a strong political center, but would weaken it economically, by committing west European (not U.S.) resources to the improvement of economic conditions in east/central Europe.

The east/central Europeans of course have been delighted to play the role assigned to them. They do want to be part of "Europe" and to be accepted as the cultural equals of the West Europeans. But they want even more to be part of the American world, and to be linked in whatever way they can be to the U.S., seen both as earthly paradise, and an anti-Russia. The last thing they want is the inclusion of Russia into any European structure.

The Russians of course see all this clearly. First, they tried to stop NATO expansion by threats. But the threats were bluster, and impressed no one, least of all the United States. So they have now decided to sneak in the back door, estimating that they could better control the situation from within NATO. A new special arrangement (know colloquially as 19 + 1) is about to be ratified, which makes Russia a semi-member of NATO.

There are two questions about what has been happening? Why have the west Europeans allowed this to happen? And what does the U.S. really want? The first question is harder to answer than the second. There are several elements to the answer about the west Europeans. There is still a large older generation (who of course are heavily represented in the higher political councils) who remain "grateful" to the U.S. and feel they should pay the price of gratitude. And there are some who agree that western Europe should stand by the U.S. politically against the demands of the uncivilized peoples.

But perhaps more important is the fact that the Europeans, quite apart from these immediate geopolitical considerations, are unsure how far and how fast they wish to proceed with political unification. And therefore, they are also unsure how far and how fast they wish to pull Russia into their house. Were Europe to assert itself as a relatively unified political and economic force on the world stage, it would of course need Russia, both for its potential addition to Europe's military force and as a key element in the European internal market.

As for the U.S., the curious thing, after all of this, is that the U.S. needs and wants NATO least of all. They want NATO primarily to keep western Europe from detaching itself from U.S. influence/control. But they do not want NATO militarily. The U.S. reaction after Sept. 11 made this preeminently clear. On Sept. 13, Lord Robertson, on behalf of NATO, offered full military help under Article 5 of the treaty, an article never before invoked. The offer was quietly declined. The U.S. sees NATO as a military drag. In Kosovo, a battle that was fought under the NATO banner, the U.S. military had to clear military decisions with other NATO members. This was a constraint the U.S. did not appreciate and is not about to allow to be repeated. The U.S. is supremely confident that it does not need NATO and can handle the world military situation on its own. Europeans should stick to logistical support and peacekeeping, as requested by the U.S.

The curious thing these days is that it is the U.S. that is doing most to undermine the solidity, perhaps the very existence, of NATO.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Israel/Palestine: Can There Be Peace? (15 March 2002)

It's getting harder and harder to believe that there is an end in sight for the warfare. It was always a difficult political situation with no easy solutions. It wasn't, however, inevitable that we came to where we have come today. What we have is a situation in which two modern nationalist movements have laid claim to the same land. It is not however merely that they have both claimed a limited stretch of contested land. They have both claimed the entire land area in question.

In such a situation, everyone has seen from the beginning that there were only three possible definitive solutions: (1) the establishment of a binational state; (2) either the one or the other side won 100% of the land (and probably expelled or killed the others); (3) there would be a partition to which both sides would agree.

Binational states are hard enough to keep together (Canada, Belgium, Cyprus), but they seem virtually impossible to found when they don't already exist historically (and the two that were founded ab initio - Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia - no longer exist). The now forgotten Jewish intellectual, Judah Magnes, who was the first Chancellor of the Hebrew University, struggled to create a binational state in the pre-1948 period, but he never had a large audience for his views. Some Palestinian intellectuals have proposed similar ideas recently. But they too don't have much audience for such views. Given everything that has occurred, it doesn't seem a politically viable option.

Then there is the idea of mutual destruction. This idea has a much larger audience than the idea of a binational state. I would guess (there are no opinion polls) that perhaps 30% of Israeli Jews and 30% of Palestinian Arabs are in fact in favor of this option, even if some of them would deny it. So this is a serious option, and there are people seriously pursuing it. Of course, those on each side who favor this option think they would be the victorious ones, and would give you long geopolitical analyses (not to speak of the expected divine intervention) to show you why they would win. And who knows? Perhaps one of them is right. Then the world could chalk up another holocaust - of Arabs or of Jews - and move on to other matters (unless of course one or the other managed to start a nuclear war).

That leaves the rest of us (Israelis, Palestinians, and third parties) who do not believe a binational state is credible and who refuse to regard sanguinely Armageddon. This might be called the camp of some kind of peace. The problem is what kind of peace? It is not so simple, anywhere in any situation, to be for peace. For there are two kinds of peace agreements. There are those which cut the pie 50-50 more or less. And there are those which cut the pie 80-20 more or less. Speak to me not of justice. Peace and justice are not only not the same thing but quite often incompatible. So, if you are for peace, you often have to put it ahead of justice, or at least ahead of full justice.

The trouble with peace camps is that very few in them are really in favor of a 50-50 solution. The majority usually are looking for solutions that are 80-20 in favor of one side or the other. This was certainly true in the negotiations before and after Oslo in the case of Israel/Palestine. The only difference between Sharon and Barak is that Sharon has increased the percentage from 80-20 to 95-5. That is more or less the difference between Arafat and Hamas. Getting a deal that is closer to 50-50 is a long way off. And in the meantime, the war is escalating, and may be now beyond the control of the camp of peace.

What is a 50-50 solution? I shall not answer the question, because every reader will quibble with me about details. We have had many starting points for a 50-50 solution in the past. Today, people are focusing on the elusive proposals of Prince Abdullah. I guess they're as good a starting-point as any. But no one seems to be starting. And in a year, Abdullah's proposals may be history, like the Mitchell proposals. In any case, what is important if one is to get to a 50-50 arrangment is not just a plan, but a certain spirit, a certain degree of mutual exhaustion, and a certain degree of outside pressure.

At the moment, the spirit isn't there, the exhaustion is just beginning to be felt, and the outside pressure is simply absent. The United States is Israel's ally, as its leaders never tire of stating publicly, and this is more true than ever today. Its pressure is in favor of a pro-Israel 80-20 solution. The Europeans are more equitable, which is why the Israelis don't want them to play a role. But the Europeans are also still unwilling to buck the United States publicly on this issue. This is part of the larger question of European-U.S. relations. And Abdullah surely cannot do it alone, if indeed he is in favor of a 50-50 solution.

So what will happen? This is why one has every justification to be pessimistic, even if that is a terrible thing to be. After the Israelis reoccupy permanently the West Bank and Gaza, and someone launches biological and/or chemical weapons, and the Mosque of Omar and the Wailing Wall are blown up, we shall be able to see a posteriori which side has committed suicide. It will be the subject of many a doctoral dissertation and journalistic account. There may even be novels, great novels.

I would recommend hiding in a cave, except that I understand that there are now these wonderful new weapons that can kill you or flush you out from the deepest caves. It was simpler yesteryear.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Iraq: How Great Powers Bring Themselves Down (1 April 2002)

George W. Bush is a geopolitical incompetent. He has allowed a clique of hawks to induce him to take a position, an invasion of Iraq, from which he cannot extract himself and which will have nothing but negative consequences, for everyone but first of all for the United States. He will find himself badly hurt politically, perhaps fatally. He will diminish rather rapidly the already declining power of the United States in the world. He will contribute dramatically to the destruction of the state of Israel by furthering the suicidal madness of the Israeli hawks. Of course, there will be many persons in the world who will be happy to see such negative consequences. The trouble is that, in the process, Bush will conduct warfare that will destroy many lives immediately, lead to a degree of turmoil in the Arab-Islamic world of a kind and at a level hitherto unimagined, and perhaps unleash the use of nuclear weapons which, once unleashed now, will be hard to make illegitimate after that. How have we all gotten into such a disastrous cul-de-sac?

It seems reasonably certain that a U.S. military action against Iraq is now not a question of maybe but how soon. Why is this happening? If one asks the spokesmen of the U.S. government, the reason is that Iraq has been defying United Nations resolutions and represents an imminent danger to the world in general, and perhaps the U.S. in particular.

This explanation of the expected military action is so thin that it cannot be taken seriously. Defying U.N. resolutions or other international enjoinders has been a dime a dozen for the last fifty years. I need hardly remind anyone that the U.S. refused to defer to a World Court decision about Nicaragua that condemned it. And Pres. Bush has made it amply clear that he will not honor any treaty should he think it dangerous to U.S. national interests. Israel has, of course, been defying U.N. resolutions for over 30 years, and is doing so again as I write this commentary. And the record of other U.N. members is not much better. So, yes, Saddam Hussein has been defying quite explicit U.N. resolutions. What else is new?

Is Saddam Hussein an imminent threat to anyone? In August, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. That action at least posed an imminent threat. The response was the so-called Persian Gulf War. In that war, the U.S. pushed the Iraqis out of Kuwait, and then decided to stop there. Saddam Hussein remained in power in Iraq. The U.N. passed various resolutions requiring Iraq to abandon nuclear, chemical, and bacteriological weapons, and mandated inspection teams to verify this. The U.N. also embargoed Iraq in various ways. As we know, over the decade since then, the de facto situation has changed, and the system of constraints on Iraq put in place by these U.N. resolutions has weakened considerably, albeit not totally by any means.

On Mar. 28, 2002, Iraq and Kuwait signed an agreement in which Iraq agreed to respect the sovereignty of Kuwait. The Foreign Minister of Kuwait, Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, said his country is now "100% satisfied." Asked by a reporter if Kuwait was happy with each and every clause in the agreement, Kuwait's Foreign Minister replied "I wrote them myself." The spokesperson for the United States however exhibited skepticism. The U.S. is not about to be deterred simply because Kuwait is "satisfied." What is Kuwait, that they should participate in such a decision?

The U.S. hawks believe, as I have suggested in several previous commentaries, that only the use of force, very significant force, will restore U.S. unquestioned hegemony in the world-system. It is no doubt correct that the use of overwhelming force does establish hegemony. This occurred in 1945, and the U.S. did become the hegemonic power. But the use of such force when the conditions of hegemony have already been undermined is a sign of weakness rather than of strength, and weakens the user. It is clear that, at this point, no one supports the U.S. invasion of Iraq: not a single Arab state, not Turkey or Iran or Pakistan, not a single European power.

There is to be sure one notable exception: Great Britain, or rather Tony Blair. Tony Blair is having however two problems at home. There is a brewing revolt in the Labor Party. And, more important, The Observer of March 17 reports that "Britain's military leaders issued a stark warning to Tony Blair last night that any war against Iraq is doomed to fail and would lead to the loss of lives for little political gain." I cannot believe that U.S. military leaders are really making a different assessment, although they may be perhaps more wary of telling it as it is to President Bush. Kenneth Pollack, the Iraqi person in Clinton's Security Council, says it requires sending in 2-300,000 U.S. troops, presumably from bases in either Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, and sending in some more to defend the Kurds in northern Iraq. These troops would presumably come from, or fly over, Turkey.

The U.S. seems to be counting on intimidating all its "allies" into going along. After the occupation of Ramallah by Sharon, the remote hope that Saudi (or even Kuwaiti) bases would be available has probably disappeared. Turkey clearly does not want to defend Iraqi Kurds, when the major consequence on this would be to strengthen the Kurdish movement in Turkey, against which the Turkish government focuses all its efforts. As for Israel, Sharon seems to be intent in carrying out as rapidly as possible the reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the destruction of the Palestinian Authority. And Bush gives him 99% support in this.

If this is right, then there will be an invasion, which will be difficult if not impossible to win, the loss of many lives (most notably U.S. lives), and eventually a quasi-withdrawal by the U.S. A second Vietnam. Can no one in the Bush administration see this? A few, but they are not being counted. Why? Because Bush is in a self-imposed dilemma. If he goes ahead with the Iraq invasion, he will bring himself down, like Lyndon Johnson, or be humiliated, like Richard Nixon. And the U.S. failure will finally give the Europeans the courage to be European and not Atlantic. So why do it? Because Bush promised the U.S. people a "war on terrorism" that "we will certainly win."

So far, all he's produced is the downfall of the Taliban. He hasn't captured Bin Laden. Pakistan is shaky. Saudi Arabia is pulling away. If he doesn't invade Iraq, he will look foolish where it matters to him most - in the eyes of American voters. And he is being told this, in no uncertain terms, by his advisors on internal U.S. politics. The incredibly high ratings of Bush are those for a "war president." The minute he becomes a peacetime president, he will be in grave trouble, all the more so because of failed wartime promises.

So, he has no choice. He will invade Iraq. And we shall all live with the consequences.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Defiance: Does the Superpower Matter? (15 April 2002)

George Bush has one priority on his mind right now. That's the invasion of Iraq. Ariel Sharon has one priority on his mind right now - destroy the Palestine Authority and remove Yassar Arafat from the political arena. While Bush has the greatest sympathy for what Sharon is doing, it is interfering at the moment with his priority concern. Even Cheney has told him that.

So reluctantly, Bush issued an ultimatum to Sharon: cease now! This was difficult for him to do in terms of U.S. politics. Everyone is down his back because of it - the right-wing Republicans, the Democrats, the Israeli lobby. But he also has the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Moroccans, the Egyptians, and even the Bahrainis to contend with. The latter have no strength inside U.S. politics, but they have military bases, and the ability to legitimate what Bush wishes to do. So the Israelis have their weapon to use against Bush - internal U.S. support, and the Palestinians have theirs - the U.S. need for tacit Arab support in order to reduce world outrage when the U.S. invades Iraq.

Given this U.S. need, Bush yelled "stop" to Sharon. And Sharon said, I won't, and not very politely. The New York Times, hardly an Arafat enthusiast, said in its editorial of April 9: "This is an insult to Mr. Bush and the United States." And indeed it is. Bush and Sharon are playing chicken. And thus far, Sharon is winning hands down. This is called, in no uncertain terms, defiance of a superpower.

What can the U.S. do about it? Not very much, which is what Sharon is counting on. What will be the consequence? In Israel/Palestine, the results will be disastrous for the region. But elsewhere, the results will be disastrous for the U.S. Defiance is contagious. If Sharon can get away with it, why can't Europe? Why can't Russia? Why can't China? Why can't Canada for that matter - not to speak of Mexico or Brazil?

Power is about the fear of others that they can't get away with it. That's what Bush himself has been saying. He said that the Taliban thought that they could get away with supporting Al-Qaeda in its attack on America. And he, Bush, showed them that they didn't know with whom they were dealing. He may have been right about the Taliban. But what can he do to Sharon? Send in the Special Forces? Cut off their foreign trade, or U.S. aid? Who's kidding whom? Even if he wanted to, which he assuredly does not, such steps are simply beyond the range of political possibility.

Every step that Bush has been taking has been getting him deeper into the mud. He came into office determined not to repeat what he thought was Clinton's mistake - personal involvement in a Middle East settlement. He thought this was a no-win position that weakened the authority of the U.S. President. There was a certain limited, if twisted, logic in this position. But he's had to give it up. First he sent Zinni, then Cheney, now Powell. All that's left is convening everyone to Camp David. And if he did, at the moment, Sharon wouldn't come.

Perhaps, I don't know, they are saying in private discussions in the White House that they may have made some missteps. Can the errors be salvaged? The problem is that a little fiddling with U.S. foreign policy will not change very much. When the car is going downhill and the brakes aren't working perfectly, you have to figure out how to slow down the speed without overturning. You certainly don't usually survive by increasing the speed. U.S. unquestioned hegemony is in disarray. That is the message Sharon, who may think of himself as a great friend of the U.S. and certainly of its conservative presidents, is giving the world. And others, less friendly to the U.S. and certainly to its conservative presidents, will hear the message quite clearly.

The defiance has already had its impact on Europe, where suddenly a basically pro-Israel political atmosphere has morphed into one of considerable disapproval and even hostility. Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon's Israeli critic on the right, says this proves what he has always believed, that the Europeans are still anti-Semites (presumably unlike the Americans). But this is largely silly rhetoric. Some Europeans are indeed anti-Semites, as are some Americans. But anti-Semitism is not the motor of European attitudes today. Nor is really the plight of Palestinians, which for most of them is only a minor consideration. The Europeans are really acting out their dismay at the unintelligence and dangerous adventurism of U.S. world policy.

As for the Arab so-called "moderates," King Mohammed VI of Morocco permits himself to reprimand Powell on world television. And King Abdullah of Jordan says on television that Sharon has turned Arafat into a saint, meaning I could no more criticize him today in any way than Bush could denounce Mother Teresa. As for Arafat, I am struck by the comments of Uri Aznery, an Israeli peacenik, who visited Arafat in Ramallah after his confinement but before the current occupation by Israeli tanks. He talked of Arafat's calm, almost serene, demeanor and said it reminded him of the character of Kutuzov in Tolstoy's War and Peace. When his generals asked Kutuzov what they should do as they fell back under the impact of Napoleon's invasion, he smiled and said, wait. And when Napoleon was on the edge of Moscow and snow was falling all around, Napoleon decided on his own to retreat. All Kutuzov did was wait. Arafat is waiting.

Putin and the Chinese leadership are equally patient. They too are waiting. Bush however is not waiting. He is diddling.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

A French Earthquake? (1 May 2002)

When Jean-Marie Le Pen edged Lionel Jospin out of second place in the first round of the French presidential elections, and thus qualified to run against Jacques Chirac in the second round, French (and world) newspapers described it as a political earthquake. What really happened, and how important was it? There are actually two separate questions. Why did Le Pen do as well as he did? And why did Jospin do as poorly? The short answer is that Le Pen did less well than it seems. It is Jospin's weak showing that is more significant.

Electoral results depend in part, as we know, on the electoral system. Le Pen got just under 17% (and his breakaway former associate Bruno Megret a bit over 2%), making 19% between them. This is not really a lot. Le Pen is a rightwing xenophobic populist nationalist who combines appeals to French insularity, diatribes against immigrants, a tough-on-crime language, a theme of Catholic integrism, and a dose of traditional anti-Semitism. He is anti-global, anti-European, and anti-American. His movement includes fascist elements, but doesn't use primarily the anti-parliamentary para-military mobilization of interwar fascist movements. But who knows how far he would go were he in power? He is a very unsavory character, and no one should want to see his movement gain strength, let alone win a presidential election.

That said, there are probably 20% of the voters in every Western country who basically support a program like that of Le Pen, and that almost all of the time. However, they don't vote for him or someone like him all the time. Why not? It depends on two things: first, the immediate situation of the country and particularly of the state of the so-called mainstream parties; and secondly, the electoral system. He got his 17% largely because both Chirac and Jospin seemed to offer voters (of the right but also of the left and even of the center) so little.

France has an unusual system: it is presidential, but it is a two-round system. The U.S. is presidential, but one round. And many other countries are parliamentary. Those in turn divide into the ones with single member districts (like Great Britain), and those with partial or total proportional representation. In the U.S. system, political factions are more or less obliged to work inside one of the two main parties, or be excluded. The Le Pen 20% in the U.S. are the Christian right plus the hawks. They work inside the Republican party, and at the moment have more or less taken it over. They did not vote for Pat Buchanan. The British system (parliamentary but single-member) gives results similar to those of the United States. In more "proportional" parliamentary systems, like Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Le Pen equivalents can draw large votes and make their deals afterwards. In Austria, it got them into the government. The Dutch equivalent, Piet Fortijn, is going to try that in the forthcoming elections.

France's system is quite different. Since there are two rounds, and in the second round only the top two candidates may stand, the system encourages factions to show their strength on the first round and to rally to the two top mainstream candidates on the second round. (All this is before the legislative elections, which are also two round.) This works on the assumption that the two top presidential candidates will poll a solid vote, and that the others will all poll small votes. Everyone thought that this would happen again this time, and that most Le Pen voters would vote Chirac on the second round.

For two months before, the pollsters kept showing that Chirac and Jospin would be in a safe lead, and that there were three main candidates vying for number 3 place, each of whom showed a good-sized vote in different weeks. At one point, it was supposed to be Chevènement. He represents the Jacobin left (nationalist, tough on crime and immigrants, but socialist) who thought he could woo disaffected Chirac voters. Then he faded, and Arlette Laguiller, the perennial Trotskyist candidate, came to the fore, speaking a wooden, tough traditional left line, and appealing to disaffected Communists and socialists. And then Le Pen, who stood in the polls at 7% a month or so ago surged forward, picking up no doubt many of those who were earlier going to vote for Chevènement or Laguiller (who both went down to under 6%). Le Pen drew a typical protest vote. Le Pen's hard core is probably little more than 5-7%.

So why did Jospin fall below Le Pen (only less than 1% below, be it noted)? There were a lot of immediate reasons. Jospin ran a lousy campaign. For a long time, he was campaigning for second round voters by sounding as close to Chirac as possible. This made many voters abstain on the first round or turn to some other minor candidate. And then there was the fact that, whereas in 1995 the parties in the present government - the so-called "plural left" that Le Monde now calls "la gauche gestionnaire" meaning the left in government that runs things - had only three candidates; this time they had five. The least well-known of them, Christiane Taubira, from the tiny Left Radical party, who ran only in order to establish the principle that someone from the overseas departments could run, got 2.32% of the vote. Had she not run, probably all of these would have voted for Jospin (since Left Radicals feel closer to the Socialist Party than to any other party in France). Taubira's votes would have allowed Jospin to squeak ahead of Le Pen. And then there would have been no "earthquake." Indeed, it is quite possible that Jospin would have gone on to win the second round.

The real story is not however in the idiocy of the Taubira candidacy. It is in the ideological decline of the social-democrats everywhere in the Western world. Jospin was probably the most traditionally "left" of social-democratic leaders anywhere. He ran his 1995 presidential and 1997 legislative elections on a left rhetoric (forcing the conservative parties leftward to the center), and this clearly appealed. No Tony Blair he! This time, he got cold feet, or rather he let the Tony Blairs of the French Socialist Party persuade him to move his rhetoric to the right. It did not work electorally.

The problem with the Social-Democrats everywhere in Europe (as with the Democrats in the U.S.) is that they have moved over 50 years so far to the center, and even the center-right, that they don't seem to stand for anything that will arouse voters. In 1981, people danced in the streets when Mitterand (much further right than Jospin) won the election. Mitterand had promised "another society." By 1983, the socialists had abandoned that language and that promise.

Socialists haven't been Marxists for a long time. They haven't been revolutionaries. These days they are scarcely socialist. (In this campaign, Jospin said his program wasn't socialist.) They are for the blessings of the free market, perhaps with some social leavening. They will defend for the most part the acquired rights of the trade-unions and governmental workers. And even there, they are beginning to weaken. Yes, they tend to be more "socially liberal" on questions like rights of women, of gays and lesbians, of people of color, and up to a point of immigrants. This means they can count on 20% of the votes, just as the Le Pens can count on 20%. The other 60% often go fishing, or vote for colorless centrist politicians, or get mobilized by national crises to support the like of George W. Bush.

Jospin's defeat was not the earthquake. The earthquake occurred some time ago, when the left ceased being left, or even recognizably left of center. France is not the worst story, by any means. It's time for the world's so-called left to reassess not only where the world is heading, but even electoral strategy, not to speak of political strategy overall.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Israel/Palestine: It's Getting Ugly (15 May 2002)

The conflict between the two nationalisms has been going full steam at least since the First World War. As of 1945, neither nationalism was ready to concede any legitimacy to the other. Arab nationalists regarded Zionists as intruders without any legitimate rights. And Zionists thought that the entire territory of the mandate of Palestine should be the "Jewish national home." The British as the mandatory waffled, but generally speaking most parties to the conflict and most analysts thought they were somewhat more on the Arab side than on the Zionist side.

In the world political debate from 1945-1947, the Arabs were in a weak position. Many Arab leaders (and in particular the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem) had sided with the Axis powers. The Zionists had the benefit of European guilt about Nazi extermination of Jews in Europe. The Soviet Union wanted the British out of the Middle East, and so in fact did the United States (although it didn't say so). The British were in a withdrawal mode in any case (not only from Palestine but from Greece and Turkey as well).

So when the British announced they would abandon the mandate, the United Nations voted a partition. The vote was overwhelming. Only the Arab states and a handful of others opposed the resolution. The Zionists reluctantly accepted partition (with its crazy initial boundaries), feeling that the crucial thing was to get a state, any state, from which they could pursue their claims further. This turned out to be a politically shrewd decision. When independence was declared on May 15, 1948, the United States and the Soviet Union raced to be the first to recognize.

The Arab states, in the absence of a functioning Palestinian nationalist movement, decided to declare war. They more or less lost the war, and the boundaries shifted to the advantage of the independent state of Israel. Jordan and Egypt annexed the parts of the mandate that Israel didn't control. As we know, there were two more wars between Israel and the Arab states, in 1967 and 1973, at the end of which Israel took control from Jordan and Egypt of the West Bank and Gaza, respectively (and conquered the Sinai and the Golan for good measure). The Palestine Liberation Organization, the organizational incarnation of Palestinian nationalism, was founded in 1964 but only became important after the 1967 war. Yasser Arafat becomes its leader in 1969.

The first break in the hostilities was the Camp David Accord of 1978 between Egypt and Israel. It led to a peace treaty and to the return of the Sinai to Egypt. It was the beginning of a new stage in the struggle between the two nationalisms. From 1945 to 1978, both sides espoused publicly an absolutist position. The Israelis argued, as Golda Meir famously said, that there was no such thing as Palestine (or that, if there were, it was Jordan). Consequently, there could be no such thing as a Palestinian state to be located within the area that had been the British mandate. And the PLO Covenant rejected the right of the Israeli state to exist.

The period from 1978 to 2000 was the time of the "moderates" - that is, of those on each side who claimed that a compromise was possible, that there could be two states at peace with each other. Of course, each side still expected the other side to make the major concessions, but at least the leaders on each side (or most of the leaders) with the support of their populations (at least large parts of their populations) talked the language of peace. The high point of this was the so-called Oslo accords. To be sure, there were those on each side who rejected the Oslo accord. Indeed, many rejected them unconditionally and with violence. But the major powers of the world and probably the majority of Israelis and Palestinians thought Oslo might work, and more or less wanted it to work.

It didn't. Everyone is busy these days pointing fingers at who made it fail. The favorite villains are Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat. Frankly, who cares? For after Oslo came the present continuing war. The Israeli government and armed forces enter Palestinian areas at will and do whatever they think justified. Since they are militarily far stronger than the Palestinians, they can wreak considerable damage. The weaker Palestinians engage in martyrdom operations. There doesn't seem to be the slightest indication that this will stop in the near future.

Meanwhile the language of everyone is changing. Likud has just said publicly what everyone knew it felt privately. There should NEVER be a Palestinian state. And at least some Palestinian activists are reverting to "death to the Jews" slogans. In the outside world, too, there is an interesting switch going on. In the period 1945-1978, in the Western world, support for Israel was to be found largely on the left of center (where world Jewry found itself as well). The right tended to be pro-Arab, often simply because of an anti-Semitic heritage. After 1978 or thereabouts, a slow reversal began. The pro-Israel camp took on an ever more right of center (even far right) coloration (as did both world Jewry and Israel itself). The world left of center moved toward ever greater sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

Since we seem to be in for a period of unremitting and unlimited warfare in Israel/Palestine, tempers are inflamed. What were once outrageously extremist views are now becoming anodyne. The limited tolerance in each camp of "moderate" or 'peace" views, which had somewhat blossomed after 1978, seems to have been swept away in the violence of 2001-2002 - within Israel, and in the rest of the world. And the fighting seems to be spreading from inside the region to increasingly nasty confrontations between supporters in the rest of the world.

Those who have the courage and intelligence to stand, amidst an ever uglier brawl, for a two-state solution, two states of equal legal status within more or less the 1967 boundaries, are getting fewer, and are certainly not being treated well anywhere. The United States, fighting its own demons, has abandoned any real pretense of fair-play involvement, and is making sure that no one else can play this role.

The short run is with the Israeli hawks. They have the guns (and the nuclear weapons). And they have 99% U.S. support. But the middle run doesn't look good for any one - not Israelis, not Palestinians, not Jews, not Arabs - and not Americans. And let us not forget. Someone may soon be using tactical nuclear weapons.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Immigrants (1 June 2002)

Immigrants aren't very popular these days, especially in countries that are wealthy. In North America, western Europe, and Australasia, the local residents tend to think three things about immigrants: 1) They have come primarily in order to improve their economic situation. 2) They lower the income levels of those already there both by accepting work at lower rates of pay and by obtaining benefits from the state's provisions for welfare assistance. 3) They constitute social "problems," either because they are burdens on others or because they are more likely to be involved in minor and major crimes or because they insist on retaining their customs and fail to "assimilate" into the countries to which they come.

Of course, all three statements are largely true. Of course, the major motive of immigrants is to improve their economic situation. Of course, they will accept jobs at lower rates of pay, especially when they first come. And since, as a result, they are poorer on the whole than the prior residents of a country, they are more like to seek various kinds of public and private assistance. And of course they pose "problems" to the country into which they come.

The question really is, so what? First of all, immigrants cannot get into countries, legally or illegally, without a good deal of connivance on the part of those already there. So they must serve some function for those already there. And we know what these functions are. They are willing to take jobs which are necessary for the functioning of the economy but which those already there are reluctant to take. These are not merely the unpleasant jobs at the unskilled end of the work force. These include the jobs of professionals. The medical structures of most rich countries today would be in major turmoil if one were to eliminate all the immigrant medical personnel (not only nurses but doctors as well).

Furthermore, since almost all rich countries today have a skewed demographic curve, in which those over 65 are an ever-increasing percentage of the population, those already there would not be able to enjoy the pensions they now enjoy were it not for the immigrants (ages 18-65) who expand the contributing base of these pensions funds. We know that, in the next 25 years, if the number of annual immigrants does not go up by something like fourfold, there will be drastic cutbacks circa 2025. As for "problems," problems are what we define as problems.

Still, we see the constant use of the immigrant scare by rightwing populist movements. These movements may be labeled as "extremist" and not get more than 20% of the vote (more than 20%? is not 20% already very high?), but the use of such demagoguery forces centrist politicians ever further to the right on these issues.

So we have a curious political seesaw constantly going on. The wealthy states regularly enact more and more barriers to entry (legal and illegal). And the immigrants keep coming, abetted by profit-seeking smugglers and employers who want cheaper labor. And on the sidelines are some relatively small groups who seek to alleviate the unjust and often cruel treatment of the immigrants. The net result is more and more immigration and more and more complaint about immigration.

Now, notice something. This description is the description of rich countries in relation to immigrants coming from poorer countries. Since there is an extended hierarchy of national wealth, the statements are not merely true about Mexicans coming to the United States, but about Guatemalans coming to Mexico or Nicaraguans coming to Costa Rica, or Filipinos coming to Hong Kong, or Thais coming to Japan, or Egyptians coming to Bahrain, or Mozambicans coming to South Africa. And so we could continue around the world.

Notice something else. This description does not fit the movement of persons from rich countries to poorer countries. Is there such movement? Less than there used to be. Colonization was such a movement, and new colonists are relatively rare these days for political reasons (Israel is just about the last of the truly colonizing nations). But there are still movements of wealthy individuals buying land in poorer zones (and thereby raising the level of land purchase costs and rents, often making it impossible for previous residents to remain where they are). But such movements are largely within state boundaries. So these persons are not called immigrants. With the creation of the European Union, this is beginning to happen in important ways across Europe.

There are few issues on which there is more hypocrisy than the issue of migration. The proponents of the market economy almost never extend it to the free movement of labor. And this for two reasons. It would be politically extremely unpopular in the wealthier zones. And it would undermine the worldwide system of differential labor costs, so crucial for maximizing worldwide profit levels. Still, the result is that, when the Soviet Union wouldn't allow people to emigrate freely, it was loudly denounced for actions contrary to basic human rights. But when the post-Communist regimes do allow people to emigrate freely, the wealthier countries immediately set up barriers against their entry.

What if we allowed water to seek its own level? What if we eliminated all barriers to movement, entry and exit, around the world? Would all of India emigrate to the United States, all of Bangladesh to Great Britain, all of China to Japan? Of course not. No more than, within the United States, does all of Mississippi emigrate to Connecticut, or within Great Britain, all of Northumberland emigrate to Sussex. For one thing, most people tend to prefer the place in which they grew up. They share the culture; they know the history; they have family ties.

Would all the cultures become hybrids? All the cultures already are. Take any major zone of Europe or Asia, and look at the waves of peoples that have traversed those lands in just the last thousand years, leaving the residue of their languages, their religions, their eating habits, and their world views. We all have got to relax seriously about the idea of people-movement. It's the one area in which laissez-faire might really work. We should remember that the original slogan was "laissez faire, laissez passer."

Within countries we see all the time such movement. And we know that the movement into a neighborhood of persons considered to be of lower social status often leads to the movement out by previous residents who think of themselves of higher social status. We may applaud this or deplore this but we seldom try to regulate this by forbidding movement into neighborhoods. What would be so terrible if we applied this principle to states?

Will the immigrants assimilate? Well no, not if one means that they will simply remake themselves as clones of the people into whose area they move. But would that be a virtue? All our states are already incredibly diverse, which is a plus not a minus. And a little more spice in the pot would probably only make things more tasty. The immigrants (and especially their children) will of course try to fit in with their neighbors. We all do. And the neighbors might even try to fit in with the new arrivals. It's called learning, and adapting.

Of course, this is one of those ideas that would only really work if everyone did it. If one country allowed free immigration but others did not, that country might really be swamped. But if everyone did it, my guess is that there would be little more worldwide movement than at present, that it would be more rational and less dangerous, and that it would arouse less opposition.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Prerequisites, Power, and Peace (15 June 2002)

Politics is about the struggles over alternative public policies. Such struggles are endless. In the contemporary world, it is considered desirable that these struggles be decided by some kind of voting process in which the majority rules. We all know that individuals and groups have views on such policies of varying strength, and that the determination with which individuals or groups pursue their objectives (which includes how much money, prestige, and favors they will invest in pursuing their objectives) affects the results enormously. What we call a stable, relatively democratic state is one in which these debates and disputes are conducted without open violence.

We also all know that there are many such debates and disputes which arouse a higher degree of passion because they seem to be about the fundamental rules of the game: who is included in the decision-making processes, what are the boundary lines within which policies are set, who owns the land and the heritage of a particular area. Let us call these constitutional struggles. These struggles occur in many different contexts. They may involve a colony seeking its independence from a colonizing power. They may involve a "minority" (who are sometimes the majority of the population) seeking to overcome exclusion from political (but also economic and social) rights within the state. They may involve a long-standing land/boundary dispute between states.

Let us take a small list of such disputes that have gotten considerable worldwide publicity in the last few decades: India/

Pakistan over Kashmir, South Africa under the apartheid regime, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Israel/Palestine, Chiapas/Mexico, the Southern Sudan, the Kurds in Turkey, the Basques in Spain, East Timor/Indonesia, Kosovo/Serbia. The quite diverse conflicts on this list in fact share two characteristics: (1) at some point, there has been violence; (2) in each case, one side is essentially defending a status quo while the other side is asking for a considerable change in the situation.

Of course, the situations are indeed quite different, and I have chosen the list to make clear that, in terms of ideology or outside support, the "weaker" and the "stronger" sides of these conflicts do not attract consistent worldwide solidarities. People who supported Kosovo may not have supported the Basques. People who supported the Southern Sudanese may not have supported the Palestinians. Of course, these people do not think of themselves as being inconsistent. They will argue the specifics of each situation, and say that they are not morally equivalent.

I should like to locate however some further commonalities by looking at the history of the rhetoric in these situations. The grievances that underlie these disputes often have roots in events or deeds that occurred in a distant past. A group was conquered, or displaced, or had its land confiscated. This happened because this group was weaker than the group which conquered it, displaced it, or confiscated its land. Furthermore, the grievances often involve the fact that these past deeds led to the creation of political structures that effectively disenfranchised the weaker group or sought to abolish them culturally (by religious conversion or by linguistic imposition).

The history of the rhetoric has usually been as follows. Stage one: the stronger group validates the structure by arguments about the merits of the stronger group and the cultural limitations of the weaker group. Stage two: the weaker group organizes politically, contesting the rhetoric and demanding a more "egalitarian" structure. Stage three: the stronger group ignores the weaker group, and the weaker group gets nowhere in terms of constitutional change. Stage four: some elements of the weaker group begin to engage in violent acts; the world takes notice.

When we get to stage four, part of the politics becomes obtaining or retaining the support of powerful outside groups. So the stronger group argues that the violence of the weaker group is illegitimate, and that making concessions to violence sets an unacceptable precedent. The stronger group demands the end of violence as a "prerequisite" to discussions that could lead to "peace." The weaker group responds that, without violence, they were ignored. And that it is only discussions that lead to a "political" solution which will allow the violence to end. Impasse!

We all recognize stage four. It is the Indian government demanding that Pakistan hold back the infiltrators. It is the apartheid regime refusing to release Nelson Mandela from prison until ANC renounces violence. It is the Northern Irish Protestants demanding that IRA disarm before matters can proceed. It is the Russian government insisting that the Chechnya rebels are criminals. It is Sharon saying that there will be no discussion with the Palestinian Authority until all terrorism ceases. It is the Mexican government insisting that its troops must occupy Chiapas in order to restore order before discussions can continue. It is the Khartoum government saying that the southern Sudanese must lay down their arms, and the Turkish government saying the same thing to the Kurds. It is the Spanish government denouncing the ETA terrorists. It is the Indonesian government responding to the East Timorese with ferocious repression. It is the Serbians sending in their troops to wipe out Kosovo rebels.

Once again, I choose all these cases because I believe the readers are likely to agree with the "stronger" group only in some cases and will disagree strongly in others. I do myself. But the structural parallels among all these cases are still striking. What is also striking is the debate within each camp, which seems to be the same in all of them. Each side has "moderates" who wish to find a political solution, one that involves some "compromise." And each side has intransigents who want all or nothing, and who spend most of their energy fighting the moderates on their own side, or trying to undermine any negotiations by the timely use of provocative violence.

These nine cases are indeed different, each one from the other. And solutions, if solutions there be, must vary. But they are all about power and rights. And they all include violence, the violence of those who wish the status quo to be maintained and the violence of those who wish to transform it. And they all end only when there is a political agreement. If the "war against terrorism" is a war to stop the weaker groups from using violence, it is Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Of course, enough strength in defense of the status quo may repress successfully for a while. But it is always only for a while. And of course, the organizations of rebellion in a particular case may be destroyed. But if they are, they are usually replaced by others - more moderate, if political concessions are in fact made, more ferocious if they are not.

What we all need to realize is that the end of such disputes - stage five in which it is largely a historical anecdote (such as today the Franco-German struggle over Alsace-Lorraine) - has always been brought about politically, not militarily. There is of course here a political lesson for both sides. But the political solution also always involves the use of violence by both sides. In any important issue, it is virtually unavoidable.

Less moralizing and more hard-nosed political analysis might help. Concessions are always painful. The important thing is that when the concessions are made, they should be such that the pain is only felt by current generations and the fact that they were painful will later seem incomprehensible to the generations yet unborn. These kinds of political solution are the only lasting ones.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Preemption: The Political and Moral Stakes (1 July 2002)

War remains a reality of the world. Nonetheless, for five centuries at least, states within the modern world-system have been struggling to create "rules of war" that would somehow limit, even eliminate, the most brutal, least justified, modes of engaging in warfare. These rules have been increasingly codified in international treaties.

In 1945, the United Nations Charter made a distinction between starting wars and defending one's country against wars that others started. The Charter accepts the legitimacy of "self-defense" and even of "collective self-defense" - that is, agreements between countries that if one is attacked, the others would rise to its defense. While in practice these rules have often been violated, it is the tribute of vice to virtue that violators since 1945 have hypocritically denied that they were violators. They have insisted that they did not start wars but that the other side did. For example, North Korea has always denied that it started a war with South Korea in 1950, arguing that it was South Korea that initiated hostilities. When the United States invaded Grenada in 1983, it asserted that it was doing this only because the lives of U.S. medical students were endangered, and therefore Grenada was the first to be hostile.

During the long cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, there was said to be a "balance of terror." This meant that both sides knew that, if the other started a war by using nuclear weapons, the other side was in a position to respond effectively, and that therefore the principal result would be mutual destruction. Nonetheless, there was constant discussion within the U.S. government (and perhaps within the Soviet government as well) of whether or not it was possible and desirable to launch such a war with so much surprise that the other side would be unable to respond effectively. This was called the issue of a "first strike" which would be "preemptive." This obviously never occurred. We cannot be sure whether the decisions were made primarily on technical grounds (the surprise would never be sufficient to avoid devastating response) or on political/moral grounds (a first strike would violate the U.N. Charter). What can be said is that no U.S. administration ever definitively repudiated the possibility of a first strike. Many persons believed that this merely was in order to keep the other side on its toes and not because any of them intended ever to carry one out.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was argued that there was less need to worry about a "first strike" since the cold war was over. But since Sept. 11, the subject has been revived. In his West Point speech in June, 2002, Pres. George W. Bush said: "If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long." This is fairly clear language. It says a first strike is legitimate, especially since Condoleeza Rice elaborated on the speech by saying "It means forestalling certain destructive acts against you by an adversary."

Bob Woodward revealed, in the Washington Post of June 16, 2002, that the Bush administration has recently discussed the possible use of U.S. teams to assassinate Saddam Hussein. The U.S. had engaged in assassination attempts in the 1950s and 1960s - none successfully, as far as we know. As a result of the revelation of this policy by the Church Committee of the U.S. Senate in 1973, Pres. Ford issued an executive order in 1976 banning the practice. This order was maintained by subsequent U.S. presidents, included Reagan and Bush (father). It is this order that is now being repealed.

In the latest issue of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (XV, 2, 2002), Jeffrey T. Richelson makes an open case for "assassination as a national security option." It is worth reviewing his arguments: "No convincing case can be that the ban [on assassinations] should be made absolute....Arguing that the U.S. should continue its ban in its present form would be more reasonable. Under the standing U.S. interpretation of international law, targeted killings of enemy leaders are permitted in just those situations where they are most likely to be indicated - in the midst of war, during a continuing series of terrorist attacks, or in the face of imminent attack. Thus, the ban did not stop President George W. Bush from signing a presidential finding in October 2001 that authorized the killing of Osama bin Laden."

So the plan seems clear. First, the U.S. tries assassination of Saddam Hussein. If that doesn't work (and it seems a bit unlikely that it will), then a preemptive first strike. President Bush has been quite ready to indicate that he wishes "regime change" in various countries. To say that this is a violation of sovereignty is to say the obvious. But that doesn't seem to faze him, since he is speaking the language of power, not of law. He is coating this language of power in the language of morality: the struggle against terrorism and for democracy. I shall not here discuss the political efficacy of such a policy. I have done that elsewhere, and its political efficacy is precisely the subject of debate within the U.S. administration, the U.S. Congress, and the various leaders of the European Union.

But this is not only a question of politics, but of law and of morality, and these two issues seem to be getting less debate. It seems clear to simple people (I am a simple person) that "forestalling" is not "defense" for one simple reason: the only way the law recognizes defense is after an act occurs. Intent to engage in an act does not constitute an act, since one never knows if the intent will be carried through. In addition, the forestaller is interpreting this intent, and he can (and quite often does) interpret it incorrectly. In criminal law, I am not legally authorized to shoot someone because I have heard him say nasty things about me and think that one day soon he may try to shoot me. If however, this other person points a gun at me, I may shoot him in self-defense. Without this elementary distinction, we are in a lawless world.

Then there is morality. Morality is dependent on the reasonableness of our actions. And reasonableness requires taking into account the degree to which we ourselves might be mistaken. There seems to be little indication that anyone in the U.S. administration is worrying about the fact that we might possibly be mistaken. But such worry, such self-analysis is crucial to morality. A preemptive war is an irrevocable action. It is not a minor misdemeanor which can be rectified by say financial compensation. People die, and in most cases many people die. The preemptor may say he wishes to prevent others (his friends and family, his co-nationals) from dying in the expected aggression of the other. The fact will nonetheless be that the preemptor shoots first and kills first. If this is not covered by the commandment, "thou shalt not kill," what is?

So it seems to me absurdly simple. First strikes are against international law. First strikes are immoral. If it is a political error, we may survive that. An error in law (of this magnitude) undermines the very possibility of law. And an error in morality (some call it a sin) is one that transforms us, not visibly for the better.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Judge, Jury, and Cavalry (15 July 2002)

I have used as my title a headline of a story concerning the U.S. government's passionate opposition to the International Criminal Court (ICC), an article which appeared in Australia's leading newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, on July 5, 2002. The world has seen recently the following extraordinary set of events. The ICC was established by an international treaty that was signed by the U.S. during the Clinton presidency. Clinton did not submit the treaty for ratification, partly because the U.S. armed forces were very unhappy with it and partly because it had no chance of being ratified by the U.S. Senate. He signed it nonetheless in order to give the U.S. the power to propose future amendments to the treaty.

When Bush came to power, the U.S. went further. Bush "unsigned" the treaty. This may not be legal, but it was done anyway, and in practice the unsigning was merely a rhetorical act. The treaty was due to come into operation only when 60 nations had ratified it. The U.S. had thought that this would not happen in less than ten years, but in fact it was achieved in two years, and the ICC came into formal existence on July 1, 2002. The treaty, as written, applies to all countries whether or not they are signatories. It provides, under specified circumstances and with many safeguards, for the possibility of pursuing people for acts violating the rules of war in a tribunal that will be located in The Hague in the Netherlands.

The U.S. government, in good U.S. slang, went ballistic. It pulled out all the stops. The first concrete issue was the renewal of the United Nations mandate to keep troops in Bosnia, which was due to occur on July 1. The U.S. vetoed this renewal because the U.N. Security Council refused to vote an explicit exemption from the provisions of the treaty for U.S. military and government personnel.

The U.S. has also threatened to veto all other U.N. peacekeeping missions that will come up for renewal or for creation. This includes, for example, the forces on the Israel-Lebanon border which are what keeps Hezbollah somewhat away from the Israeli border, and up to now has been a desideratum of the Sharon government. In addition, a committee of the U.S. Congress has already voted a provision that would bar military aid to any country that ratified the treaty.

With whom is the U.S. quarreling? The so-called "axis of evil" countries are not signatories. China is not a signatory. The principal signatories and leading advocates of the ICC are all of the U.S.'s NATO allies. It is Great Britain and France which led the struggle against the U.S. efforts in the Security Council to obtain a special exemption for the U.S. to the provisions of the treaty. There is talk that, should an American be brought before the ICC in The Hague, a rescue mission would be sent by the U.S. So we are envisaging U.S. marines landing in the Netherlands with hostile intent to "rescue" a U.S. citizen accused of war crimes.

This seems to be an Alice in Wonderland world. What can explain what has all the appearance of U.S. hysteria? It makes eminent sense, however, if one shares the logic of the U.S. hawks. The fact is that the creation of the ICC is indeed a further step in the creation of international law, and any such step is indeed an encroachment on existing sovereignty. It is meant to be that. Of course, as the west Europeans say, the treaty is designed to deal with egregious violations of existing international norms, the kind of crimes with which Milosevich is now charged before a special tribunal. Essentially, the ICC is a permanent tribunal of the same design. It is also true that the present treaty does provide that if an individual is charged with such a crime, jurisdiction lies first with that individual's national courts, and a case can be bought before the ICC only if the national courts do not consider the case. It is therefore highly unlikely that any U.S. citizen would be brought before the ICC at the present time.

But the U.S. says two things. Times may change. And there are plenty of persons in the rest of the world who bear a sufficient grudge against the U.S. so as to bring multiple accusations, one or more of which might eventually result in a case before the U.S. This is of course true. The issue is whether the U.S. wishes to rely upon the "law" to resolve such matters or whether it insists on being "judge, jury, and cavalry" in a lawless world.

The attitude of the present U.S. government has a long history behind it. The U.S. has long had a significant portion of the population and its political leadership who view international law and institutions with a jaundiced eye, indeed a hostile eye. This wing of opinion combines essential isolationism with essential militarism. Before 1941, this point of view had great strength within the Republican Party. (Those Democrats who were "isolationist" tended to be relatively pacifist.) There was of course an "internationalist" wing of the Republicans, associated with Wall Street, big business, and the East Coast, but they were always a minority.

The Second World War made isolationism unpopular and politically untenable. The famous conversion of Sen. Arthur Vandenberg to the new structure of the United Nations constituted the political basis on which the so-called "bipartisan" foreign policy of the U.S. was built in the post-1945 years. Of course, the fact that there was a Cold War to justify the "internationalism" helped considerably. The end of the Cold War marked the end of a commitment by the U.S. right to "internationalism." They have returned publicly to their pre-1941 stance, a combination of isolationism and militarism. In this light, unless NATO is entirely compliant to U.S. wishes, NATO is as much the enemy as the "axis of evil." This is what we are seeing with discussion of the hypothetical sending of U.S. marines to invade the Netherlands.

Of course, this U.S. stance wreaks havoc with everything the European Union (and Canada) are trying to construct as a "world order," in which the ICC plays an important role as an institution to further "human rights." The U.S. hawks have no interest whatsoever in such a world order. They are interested in asserting U.S. unilateral military power, and in imposing this power on everyone, not least on the NATO allies. The idea that a U.S. soldier could be called to account somewhere because he had committed an act violating international law and the norms of natural law is absolutely anathema to U.S. hawks. For, they say, after the trial of Sergeant X will come the accusation against Henry Kissinger or, why not?, George W. Bush.

A last-minute compromise has postponed the issue for one year. But this changes little. One of two things will happen now. Great Britain, France, and the others will bend, the ICC will be dismantled, and the U.S. will prevail as "judge, jury, and cavalry." Or they will not bend, and it may be NATO that will be dismantled. This is not a minor quarrel.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Japan and the Modern World-System (1 August 2002)

If one looks at the trajectory of Japan in the modern world-system, it has followed an unusual path. The first thing to notice is that it was one of the last zones on the earth to be incorporated into the capitalist world-economy. I would date this as of the middle of the nineteenth century. One might attribute this late incorporation to several factors: the geographical remoteness of East Asia generally (and Japan in particular) from the centers of accumulation of the capitalist world-economy; the strength of the local political structures which made it a poor target for imposition of colonial rule; to some extent, relative lack of obvious kinds of riches to plunder.

But in the middle of the nineteenth century, the combination of the expansionist necessities of the capitalist world-economy and the internal corrosions of the Tokugawa shogunate allowed the West to "open up" Japan and led to the Meiji Restoration. What happened then is that the Japanese elites seemed to make a rather rapid and quite lucid decision about how Japan collectively could best defend itself and obtain advantage in the modern world-system. The actions they took are well-known: selective import of "modern" technologies, economic and political, to create a regime that would not be entirely submerged by outside pressures; and the creation of a modern military structure.

Instead of allowing themselves to be an additional acquisition in the attempts of the Western powers to "carve up" China, they entered into the game as one of the "carvers." Ten years after defeating China in a war in 1895, they won a war with Russia and conquered Korea. In 1914, they declared war on Germany, joining in the First World War, essentially a European war, in order to carve more out of China. They continued this China policy for the next 30 years. By the time of the Second World War, they were a major world military power, and this time they joined the side of Germany and attacked the U.S., which gave them the excuse to conquer all of Southeast Asia.

From Japan's point of view, the Second World War was a terrible defeat, leading to much loss of Japanese life, disastrous atomic bombing, and destruction of a good part of their industrial infrastructure. Yet, in many ways, the defeat was a blessing in disguise. The defeat and U.S. occupation led to the dismantling of the militarist complex and the installation of a liberal parliamentary regime. It was no paradise, but it was far better than the political structures under which the Japanese previously lived.

The needs of the U.S. in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, especially during and after the Korean War, was an economic opportunity for Japan of which it took full advantage. The fact that Japan was forcibly deprived of its war machine meant that it could devote its energies to the economic arena. And in 25 years Japan climbed from being a somewhat average semiperipheral state to being one of the economic giants of the world-economy, one pillar of what we have come to call the Triad. The transformation of economic role was extremely rapid, quite extraordinary, and today impossible to reverse. The fact is that all the economic difficulties of the 1990s have not basically changed Japan's position as one of the principal loci of capital accumulation in the capitalist world-economy.

It is interesting to compare what happened to Germany and what happened to Japan in the period since 1945. Both lost the war. Both were denied the right to rebuild militarily. Both had immense internal social-psychological problems of how to deal with the realities of defeat and the guilt about past behavior. Both became extremely strong economically. But Germany has come to recreate for itself a political role in the world-system, and Japan thus far has been unable to do that.

Why not? The essential difference between the German situation and the Japanese situation was that Germany had France and Japan had China as next-door neighbor and, in the previous century, archenemy. Western Europe needed to restore itself collectively - economically, politically, and militarily. Germany and France were roughly equal in size and strength. They decided essentially to create "Europe" around a Franco-German alliance. This permitted Germany to rearm within the framework of "Western Europe" and NATO. The psychological scars left by German conquests in Europe were slowly healed, or at least partially muted, by the active cooperative alliance. The hegemonic power, the United States, blessed these efforts, at least for a long time.

In East Asia, the situation was quite different. China became a Communist regime. It had no interest in closer ties with Japan, nor had the U.S. any interest in seeing such ties develop. There was no "France" which could offer political shelter for a renewed Japanese military. There was no wide cooperative framework in which the countries that were psychologically scarred by Japan's past behavior - China, Korea, Southeast Asia - could find healing or at least muting of their pain. Compared to Germany, now a central locus of European integration, Japan remains relatively isolated politically on the East and Southeast Asian scene.

There is one last thing to note in the Germany-Japan comparison. Both countries had a long history of ethnicized nationalism, in which "purity" of blood and descent was a major theme, and consequently the idea of "immigration" of others into their countries anathema. Germany has been largely jolted out of this heritage, partly out of shame because of the Holocaust under Hitler, partly out of the necessity of conforming to Europe's new collective cultural norms. Hence, Germany absorbed a very large Turkish immigration. And if they grumble about this today, they do so no more than other Western European countries, or indeed the United States, grumble about immigrants.

Japan was not similarly jolted out of its cultural prejudices, in part because their wartime sins were not quite as egregious as those of the Germans, and in part because they were under no collective pressure from their neighbors to revise their norms. So Japan remains today the one major economic power that is officially hostile to immigration. Not that there aren't any immigrants. There are not only the Koreans (still second-class citizens after four to five generations) but there are, as everyone knows, Filipinos, Thais, Iranians, and all sorts of others. But they are outside the polity completely; indeed they are illegals.

What are the questions facing Japan in the next 30 years? I anticipate that Japan will become still stronger in the accumulation process of the world-economy. But, if it is to bloom, it will have to resolve the political, the military, and the cultural dilemmas it faces. The political issue can be very simply put. Japan needs to work out some serious political arrangement with China, and with Korea (which will be reunified in the next 10-20 years). Unless this happens, Japan can play no serious political role in the world-system. What Japan has to offer at the moment is its economic expertise and its accumulated capital. But creating an egalitarian relationship among the three East Asian powers will not be easy by any means. And the rest of the world will not be helpful in this regard.

Secondly, Japan has to become a relatively "normal" military power. If it works out a relationship with China, this may be doable. If not, Japan is reduced to unpleasant choices - a revival of right-wing militarist nationalism; or dependency on the United States (healthy for neither power).

And finally, Japan will have to adjust to the fundamental cultural reality of the modern world - all countries are destined to be admixtures culturally. And immigration is an economic necessity for any serious center of capital accumulation. The cultural wrench may be the biggest of them all. On the other hand, there have been instances elsewhere of spectacular cultural rearrangements under the pressures of logic and necessity. It may well happen in Japan.

The Japan of 2025 will be quite different from the Japan of today. But, we must remember, so will the whole world-system. We are living in an era of chaotic bifurcation in the world-system. Things will change at a pace and in a manner far more turbulent than anything we have known for 500 years. Japan, like all the rest of us, will be in the vortex of this hurricane, and the Japanese, like the rest of us, will have to figure out how to deal with it.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Great Britain and the Modern World-System (15 August 2002)

Does Great Britain matter today? Once, not so long ago, it was the empire on which the sun didn't set. During the Second World War, Winston Churchill said that he hadn't become the King's First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire. But soon after he was ungraciously and ungratefully evicted from office by the voters in 1945, his successors did precisely that. Today, the empire is reduced to a few scattered islands (and not even that much longer), and that exercise in nostalgia, the British Commonwealth of Nations, has dropped the adjective "British."

Since 1945, Great Britain has had only two Prime Ministers who made any difference - the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher; and the champion of the Third Way, Tony Blair. All the others (does anyone remember their names?) dithered. Now, Margaret Thatcher, I have to admit, was something. But what exactly did she accomplish? She wants to be remembered for being tough on the trade-unions. But trade-unions have been doing poorly just about everywhere in the Western world since the 1960s. It didn't require Margaret Thatcher's brutal hostility to reduce their power. What history will remember her for is destroying the Tory aristocracy and recapturing the Falkland Islands (one of those few surviving minuscule pieces of the Empire).

The Tories/Conservatives came into existence as a party in the first half of the nineteenth century. Until Margaret Thatcher, two elements are central to their history. They were always dominated by the British aristocracy. And they were the inventors of enlightened conservatism. This latter was a technique by which conservatives took the lead in implementing liberal centrism and reaped the rewards in a docile population and political power a good deal of the time. They also managed to preserve the most feudal social atmosphere in the modern world. Go see any of the many marvelous movies which show how this operated culturally.

Thatcher ended both. She ousted every last aristocrat from power and turned the party over to snarling nouveaux-riches entrepreneurs and upwardly mobile pseudo-yuppies. The Conservative Party will never be the same again, nor will the British aristocracy. Bye-bye feudalism! And, of course, enlightened conservatism has now been transmuted into the Third Way, except that Tony Blair is no aristocrat, and can't carry it off.

As for the Falkland Islands, Maggie sure showed she was tough. She got her islands back (a continuing costly investment for the British taxpayer, and a blessing for the resident population). In the process, and much to the dismay of the United States, she brought down the Argentine generals (for which we all should thank her) and started Argentina on the path to desperation on which it finds itself today. Since Argentine desperation is fueling a wave of radicalism across South America, the Latin American left may one day hail Margaret Thatcher as their unsung heroine (to balance Evita).

Tony Blair did to the Labor Party what Margaret Thatcher did to the Conservatives. He liquidated all the traditional bases of party power, threw out its entire program (even in its Fabian version), and latched on like a fawning puppy to the United States. True enough, all British Prime Ministers since 1945 have consoled themselves with being in a "special relationship" with the United States, but none has been as embarrassingly the puppet as Blair, first with Clinton and now with Bush. Once Bush and Blair invade Iraq, one wonders if the Labor Party can survive. Maybe the Liberals will at last return to center stage. Or maybe there will be political disintegration, as in Italy, followed by Lord Berlusconi of Albion.

So, does Great Britain really matter? Of course, Great Britain still has a few strong cards - The City, for one. But as Great Britain finally really integrates itself into Europe, it is not impossible that The City will simply move to Frankfurt. Perhaps not. Great Britain could become a European model of multiculturalism, although it may have to fight with its old rival, France, for that honor. It could flourish as a world center of the arts - London as Firenze. And Diana's son will make a splendid monarch. I can't wait for his wedding, not to speak of his coronation.

The Scots and the Welsh may find it not worthwhile in the end to actually secede, although I wouldn't bet on it. And personally, I shall continue to read Shakespeare.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

George W. Bush, Principal Agent of Osama bin Laden (1 September 2002)

Osama bin Laden made it clear on Sept. 11 that he wished to harm the United States grievously, and to bring down "bad Muslim" governments, most particularly those of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. George W. Bush is working overtime to help him achieve both these goals. Indeed, one might say that, without George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden would not be able to achieve these objectives, at least in any short time horizon.

George W. Bush is preparing to invade Iraq. The opposition to this move is becoming impressive. First, within the United States, two groups have become very vocal in the last few weeks. One is what are referred to as the "old Bushies," that is, George W. Bush's father and those who were his closest advisors. We have had very strong warnings from James A. Baker, Brent Scowcroft, and Lawrence Eagleburger - all part of the inner circle of the first President Bush's administration - that an invasion now, without UN authorization, is unwise, and furthermore unnecessary, and can only have negative consequences for the United States.

Then there is the opposition of the military. Brent Scowcroft is of course a former general. In addition we have heard from Norman Schwarzkopf, who led the U.S. troops in the Gulf War, Anthony Zinni, who commanded all U.S. troops in the Middle East and has been this administration's mediator in Israel/Palestine, and Wesley Clark, who commanded NATO forces in the Kosovo operation. They all say that it will not be militarily easy, that it is not militarily necessary at this time, and that it will have negative consequences for the United States. It is believed these retired military leaders speak for many who are still serving.

Add to this Richard Armey, the Republican Majority Leader in the House, and Sen. Chuck Hagel, Vietnam veteran and Republican Senator from Nebraska. This adds up to powerful internal opposition to the proposed Bush adventure. Note that there are no Democrats on this list. The Democrats have been extraordinarily and shamefully timid throughout the debate.

Then there is the opposition from the friends and allies of the United States. The Canadians say they haven't seen the evidence that would justify an invasion. The Germans say they definitely won't send troops. The Russians have spent the last several weeks having very ostentatious discussions with all three members of the axis of evil - Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. The "moderate" Arab countries are falling over each other to say that they won't allow their territory to be used for an attack on Iraq: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar. The Kurds refused to come to a meeting of the Iraqi opposition held under U.S. auspices in the U.S. And even in Great Britain, the U.S. is running into trouble. Yes, Tony Blair seems unflaggingly loyal, although he is complaining that the U.S. is not giving him anything to help him (that is, concrete evidence that he can show others). A majority of British citizens are opposed to military action, and Blair refuses to allow a discussion in the British cabinet because he knows of strong opposition there, first of all from Robin Cook.

Yes, George W. Bush does have a few staunch supporters - Ariel Sharon and Tom DeLay. But that's about it. What does the U.S. administration say in response to the criticisms? George W. Bush himself belittles the debate as a "frenzy" and says that no decision has yet been made, which no one believes. Vice-President Cheney says that, even if Saddam Hussein were now to accept the return of inspectors, he should still be overthrown (a position that even Tony Blair finds unacceptable). And Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld says that when the U.S. decides what it is right to do, and does it, others will follow. This, he says, is what we mean by leadership.

The point is that, from the point of view of the hawks, which now includes George W. Bush himself, opposition is irrelevant. They are actually happier to go ahead without any one else pitching in to help. What they wish to demonstrate is that no one can defy the U.S. government and get away with it. They wish to overthrow Saddam Hussein, no matter what he does or others say, because Saddam Hussein has thumbed his nose at the United States. The hawks believe that, only by crushing Saddam, can they persuade the rest of the world that the U.S. is top dog and should be obeyed in every way. That is why they are also pushing the mad idea of getting other countries to sign bilateral agreements with the United States, guaranteeing special treatment for U.S. citizens in matters within the purview of the newly-established International Criminal Court. The principle here is the same. The U.S. cannot be subject to international law, for it is top dog.

Of course, what all the opposition is saying - the friendly opposition, not that of Al-Qaeda - is that the United States is shooting itself in the foot, and in the process, is going to cause enormous damage to everyone else. Aside from the fact that the proposed action is illegal under international law (invading a country is aggression, and aggression is a war crime), it is foolish. Let us look at the three possible outcomes of an invasion. The U.S. may win swiftly and easily, with minimal loss of life. The U.S. may win after a long, exhausting war, with considerable loss of life. The U.S. may lose, as in Vietnam, and may be forced to withdraw from Iraq after considerable loss of life. Swift and easy victory, obviously the hope of the U.S. administration, is the least likely. I give it one chance in twenty. Winning after a long exhausting war is the most likely, perhaps two chances out of three. And actually losing, incredible as it seems (but then it seemed so in Vietnam too), is a plausible outcome, one chance in three.

In any case, any of the three outcomes damages the national interests of the United States. Suppose the U.S. wins easily and rapidly. It will impress the entire world, intimidate the entire world, and scare the living daylights out of the entire world. Nothing will guarantee a more rapid loss of U.S. real political influence in the world, and first of all among our allies and friends, than this outcome so desired by the hawks in the U.S. government. The hawks argue that it will restore U.S. power. In fact, it will devastate it. We will be friendless, with a few sycophants and a vast majority of countries seething resentment.

And then there's the problem of what we do next after the easy victory. We have promised Turkey and Jordan and probably Saudi Arabia that we will not allow Iraq to disintegrate. But can we keep the promise? Yes, if we send in a U.S. proconsul and at least 200,000 troops for long-term occupation of the country (as in Japan after 1945). But we have no intention of doing this, and the idea would have very negative consequences for the U.S. administration at home. A post-invasion Iraq would be something like Bosnia in the early 1990s - prey to internal and external ethnicizing forces. As for Iran, the U.S. can't decide if it wants her on its side or wishes to invade Iran next. In any case, Iran will take every advantage of a defeated Iraq that it can, and Iran would indeed welcome a disintegration.

The so-called moderate Arab states have been screaming that a U.S. invasion will hurt first of all their regimes, which may not survive, and will make virtually impossible what is already remote, any settlement in Israel/Palestine. This seems so obvious that one wonders how the U.S. administration can have any doubts about it. Both the Israeli and the Palestinian hawks will be infinitely strengthened, and less ready than ever to consider any arrangements, no matter who proposes them.

Then there is the most probable outcome - a long, drawn-out bloody war. Iraq may well be "bombed into the stone age," as impetuous hawks often dream. They may even be "nuked into the stone age." In the process, Iraq will launch whatever terrible weapons they have. These may be less numerous and powerful than U.S. propaganda asserts, but even a few, not so powerful weapons could wreak immense human damage all over the region (and of course first of all in Israel). The body bags will give rise to envenomed civil strife in the U.S. The economic costs of warfare, as well as the impact on the world's oil supply, will do the same kind of long-term damage to the U.S. relative position in the world-economy as did the Vietnam War. And if we are saddled with the moral blame of adding new nuclear bombings to those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it may take 50 years to calm world opinion. And then, when we've finally won, we'll have the same problem of what to do next and even less inclination to do it.

The third possible outcome - defeat - is so awesome that one hesitates to think how future generations will judge it. They will probably blame most the inability of anybody in Washington to reflect on this as a serious possibility. The psychiatrists call this denial.

Could Osama bin Laden ask for more?

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

9/11, One Year Later (15 September 2002)

Everyone knows today to what the symbol 9/11 refers. It refers to the day on which a group of followers of Osama bin Laden seized control of four airplanes in the United States, and managed to destroy the Twin Towers in New York and damage the Pentagon outside Washington. Several thousand persons lost their lives. As a result, President Bush declared a "war on terrorism," which, he said, "we will certainly win." He called on everyone everywhere to support the U.S. in this war, and said that those who were not with us were against us. He promised to capture Osama bin Laden, "dead or alive."

The immediate reaction of the American people to the attack was one of very large-scale support for President Bush and what he proposed to do. In addition, there was a wave of worldwide sympathy for America under attack. To the astonishment of more than one person, the editorial in Le Monde the next day was entitled "We are all Americans now." Bush's initial mode of implementing his program was twofold: Internationally, Bush sought to create a wide coalition of anti-terrorist activities, including the sending of troops to Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime and to destroy Al-Qaeda, thought to be located in large part within Afghanistan. Internally, he sought to improve considerably measures of security, most notably by the passage of the Patriot Act, which gave unprecedented powers to the U.S. government in overcoming legal obstacles to its activities. This Act passed the U.S. Congress almost unanimously.

The initial success of the Bush policies seemed therefore considerable. The United States seemed to hold the high ground in world public opinion. The Taliban were removed militarily from power without too much difficulty. And although neither bin Laden nor most of the Al-Qaeda leadership were captured, they seemed to be "on the run." Then the situation began to change. First of all, the United States shifted the locus of its attention. The pursuit of bin Laden and al-Qaeda seemed to fade into the background to be replaced by a different objective, "regime change" in Iraq. This objective did not at all get the worldwide assent that the "war on terrorism" evoked. Quite the contrary. So many voices seemed to rise up in protest against "preemptive action" that the United States government is now working full time to make sure that it is not totally isolated on this issue. Le Monde ran a second editorial one year later, in which it said: "The reflex of solidarity of one year ago has been transformed into a wave that might lead one to believe that, across the world, we have all become anti-Americans." The Chancellor of Germany, a country only a year ago still thought to be an indefatigable ally of the United States, is gaining in public opinion in a close electoral battle precisely because he has asserted that Germany will not send troops to invade Iraq, even if the Security Council authorizes it.

What happened during this year? The answer depends on to whom you pose the question. Let us start with those who are called the hawks in the U.S. administration, and who now seem to call the tune. They will say that they have cut through the wishy-washy kind of support upon which the U.S. has long relied, and are asserting - for the first time in over 50 years - the only kind of policy that will guarantee the national interests of the United States. They believe that the U.S. not only has the right to engage in preemptive action but the moral duty to do so. They know it discomforts many people and many governments. But they believe, as Secretary Rumsfeld said last week, that if the United States decides something is right to do and then does it, others will see that it was right and will eventually support it. Unilateralism, for the hawks, is neither wrong nor imprudent; on the contrary, it is the path of wisdom.

Which others is Rumsfeld talking about? He is talking about all those who, claiming to share U.S. values, hesitate at the image of unilateralism and urge a return to "multilateralism": in the United States, Republican stalwarts like James Baker, the Clintonites; elsewhere all those in Canada and western Europe, who are the traditional allies of the United States; the so-called moderates in the Islamic world. Rumsfeld feels their objections are all puff and when the dragon emits his flames, they will all crumble. Is Rumsfeld right about how they will act when they are largely ignored? We shall see, although he is probably right in part. Some of them are already crumbling, and are merely asking for a facade of consultation so that they may then assent.

If you ask the moderates in the Islamic world, they seem to be shaking their heads over the madness of the hawks. They live daily in touch with their local reality. They know the limits of their own power. They know also, better than the United States, the limits of U.S. power in their region. For them, it is a bit like Samson pulling down the temple. They are under the roof and will be crushed as well. But they also know their voices amount to little in Washington today. No doubt, many of them are putting their personal fates in the hands of Allah and perhaps some Swiss bankers as well.

If you ask bin Laden what has been happening, he would probably say, were he able to talk the cynical language of the geopoliticians, that all is going according to plan. (I have explained all this in the previous commentary, No. 96.) President Bush says that the U.S. objective is to strengthen the prospects of democracy in the Middle East. But that dedicated minority of persons who truly have this as an objective are wringing their hands in desperation. They know that no viable democratic regimes are going to emerge from this next explosion in the Middle East. They can only expect fanatic Islamists and repressive generals, eliminating the few pockets of space these persons now have. Torture, not liberty, awaits them.

Saddam Hussein is a nasty fellow. But he has been that for a long, long time, and for most of this time had the strong support of the United States, Soviet/Russian, and French governments. He is, when all is said and done, a very minor figure on the world scene, and furthermore historically a rather prudent figure. His primary goal is to remain in power. His secondary goal is to strengthen the Arab world militarily, with him as the leader - and this is exactly what has made him prudent.

The dangers the coming Iraqi war pose for all of us are threefold: (1) It may go far towards creating Huntington's "clash of civilizations," transforming it from a rhetorical misapprehension of reality into an organizing principle. (2) It will probably lead to the use of nuclear weapons, thereby ending the taboo, and making their use commonplace in the future. (3) It will legitimate "preemptive action," something the interstate system has been trying to outlaw for some 500 years. And on top of all of this, there will be no clearcut outcome, no immediate end in sight. We live in a chaotic world. But we don't have to up the ante so radically. Unfortunately, we are going to.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

The Battle of the Resolutions (1 October 2002)

The second U.S.-Iraqi war is undergoing its mobilizing skirmishes. It is the battle of the resolutions - two resolutions to be specific, one to be passed by the U.S. Congress and one to be passed by the U.N. Security Council.

The story starts somewhere in the early summer of 2002. At that time, the decision of the U.S. government to invade Iraq soon had clearly been taken. The hawks believed they had won entirely the internal U.S. battle. What they wanted was an invasion in October, without any resolutions. They didn't want resolutions for two reasons. They thought they might have some difficulty in getting the kind of resolutions they would find acceptable. But even more important, they wanted to show that they didn't need the resolutions, now or in the future. They wished to establish the principle that the U.S. government could and would engage in pre-emptive action anywhere at any time if they thought it desirable. And they wished to start the war in October to guarantee a Republican majority in both houses of Congress in the November elections.

To their surprise, the U.S. government ran into more opposition than they had expected - not only from the dubious allies (France, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, U.S. Democrats) but from more influential sources: the so-called "old Bushies" (that is, high-ranking Republican personalities); Rep. Armey, the Republican Majority Leader in the House; and a long list of very prominent retired generals (obviously speaking for the Army generals on active duty). In addition, Tony Blair explained that he was having a hard time pulling along the British public and British politicians. The pivotal figure, President Bush himself decided that he would have to stanch the outflow of support, and that the way to do this was by seeking the resolutions. The main internal arguments were threefold: a) the U.S. government could get the resolutions; b) Saddam Hussein would never agree to real inspections; c) the U.S. could then start the war in January, but with greater international and national support. January seems to be a deadline imposed by the U.S. military because of climate conditions in Iraq. If not January, then a postponement of at least 6-9 months beyond January. Furthermore, the fight for the resolutions, by putting the fire under the feet of the Democrats, would serve almost as well politically in November as an actual war.

So, in September, Bush made his speech to the United Nations, and called for the two sets of resolutions (U.N. and U.S. Congress). This decision was actually a minor victory for the Powell-army generals-"old Bushie" faction. That they were pleased and appeased can be noticed in the congratulatory op-ed piece that James A. Baker wrote immediately. That the hawks were less than pleased can be read in great detail in the article published just before the speech in the September issue of Commentary magazine by that old superhawk, Norman Podhoretz. The article is entitled "In Praise of the Bush Doctrine." It is a fascinating article and is worth reading carefully. It makes three points: (1) The Bush doctrine of preemptive action is terrific and is in the tradition of Ronald Reagan and not of Bush's father; (2) Bush (junior) has been good on these issues only since 9/11; (3) Bush seems to be wobbling now. The key sentence, in good American colloquial style, is: "That is not to say that the count is in yet whether Bush will walk the walk as well as he has talked the talk."

What Podhoretz has in mind in "walking the walk" is that, after Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush should take on not only Iran and North Korea but Syria, Lebanon, Libya and then Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority (even without Arafat). Podhoretz exempts Pakistan only because of the turn-around of Musharref, but if Musharref were to go, clearly Podhoretz would add Pakistan to the list. So, at least we know that the hawks are thinking of absolutely continuous warfare in the Muslim world (and no doubt beyond - Cuba anyone?).

Now what I can read, members of the U.S. Congress and members of the U.N. Security Council can read as well. Will they then pass the resolutions? Yes, of course, but that is not the battle. The battle is in the wording of the resolutions. And the battle is in how the battle is being fought.

In the U.S. Congress, the battle is being fought with a mix of intimidation and weaseling. The Bush camp is threatening the Democrats with a charge of appeasement or worse if they don't vote the resolution in the form the government wants. This has clearly worked, up to a point. The Democratic leadership has been anxious to agree on a resolution swiftly so that they can try to use the remaining time before the election to remind voters of other issues (the state of the economy, threats to social security, insurance for seniors needing medical prescriptions, etc.). But there is a lot of unease about the war out there among ordinary voters. Al Gore decided to stake his renewed campaign for the presidency by issuing a note of great caution about Iraq. He is being viciously denounced for this. Nonetheless, the speech was enough to encourage Sen. Kennedy (and others) to echo it, to get Tom Daschle to express public anger at Bush's attack on Democratic asserted lack of "concern for national security," and to encourage Rep. Bonior, No. 2 Democrat in the House, to fly off to Baghdad and to say, let's not rush to war yet. The result of all of this is that the original proposed resolution has been watered down slightly. It now will no longer give Bush sanction for any and all military actions but only for one in Iraq. That version will probably pass by very large majorities in a week or so, although there still may be wrangling over the wording.

The debate in the U.N. Security Council is probably more difficult for Bush. The U.S. wants a tight deadline on Iraqi disarmament and an authorization for war if that doesn't occur. Iraq has confounded Bush by saying he will accept inspectors, but it seems, only on the basis of the last (1998) U.N. resolution that the U.S. finds far below the acceptable norm. Hans Blix, on behalf of the United Nations, is in Vienna right now, negotiating for a return of inspectors, but of course on the basis of the existing U.N. mandate, that of 1998.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has been putting great pressure on the three doubtful veto-holding members - France, Russia, and China - to get them to accept (or at least not veto) what the British will propose (which is what the U.S. wants). So far, each of the three has issued statements that are ambivalent. France has said they absolutely do not want an authorization for war in the resolution, that such an authorization should be in a second, later resolution, once it is determined that Iraq has defied the first resolution. The French version would put off the war for a while. For it would take time to determine whether the first resolution was defied, and it would take agreement that it was. Therefore, a second resolution formula would move us beyond January, and thus into the fall of 2003. France, Russia, and China will have an eye on each other, and will probably in some sense synchronize their final positions. We cannot be sure of the wording of a U.N. resolution at this point. But even with enormous U.S. arm-twisting, it is probable that the U.N. resolution will be weaker than the U.S. wants.

So, what may we expect? A fairly strong U.S. Congress resolution, uncertain electoral results in November, and an in-between U.N. resolution. And then ambiguous responses by Saddam Hussein to whatever the U.N. tries to do. Comes December, we shall be at the moment of choice. The world will not agree on whether or not Hussein is fulfilling the U.N. resolution. And we are back at whether the U.S. proceeds alone (probably with Great Britain). For the hawks, it would be now or never. And they will push their hardest to go ahead in January, with or without international sanction. President Bush will either be their hero or their villain. I would bet he would prefer to be their hero, whatever the longer-term consequences.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

The US-Iraqi War, Seen from the longue durée (15 October 2002)

What can be said about a U.S.-Iraqi war, seen from the longue durée? Three things principally. The first has to do with the reasons for which the United States is taking the position it is taking at the moment. We have to think of the United States as a hegemonic power in the world-system, in the beginning phase of its decline. Its rise began approximately in 1873, when the U.S. positioned itself as one of two possible successor powers (the other being Germany) to the United Kingdom, which had passed its peak and was beginning its decline as the hegemonic power.

The long ascent of the United States went from 1873-1945, and required defeating Germany in a long "thirty years' war" that went from 1914-1945. This was followed by the brief moment of true hegemony, from 1945-1970. During this period, the United States was by far the most efficient producer on the world economic scene. It dominated the world politically, via a status quo accord with its only military rival, the U.S.S.R. (to which we refer metaphorically as the Yalta arrangements), and a series of politico-military alliances (NATO, the U.S.-Japan Defense Treaty, ANZUS), which guaranteed to the U.S. the automatic military and political support of a series of major industrial powers. This hegemony was sustained by a U.S. military machine based on air power and nuclear weapons (combined with a "balance of terror" with the Soviet Union).

These halcyon conditions were disturbed by two things primarily. The first was the economic rise of western Europe and Japan in the 1960s, which ended the overwhelming economic superiority of the United States, and transformed the world-system into a roughly equal triadic economic structure. The second was the unwillingness of certain countries of the Third World to accept the implications of the U.S.-Soviet Union status quo agreements - especially China, Vietnam, and Cuba.

The combination of the beginning of a Kondratieff B-phase (largely the consequence of the economic rise of western Europe and Japan, and therefore of declining monopolistic profits), the war in Vietnam (which also led to delinking the U.S. dollar from gold, and which ended in defeat), and the world revolution of 1968 (which among other things undermined the legitimacy of the Yalta arrangements) marked the beginning of the end of the ability of the United States to enforce its version of world order in the geopolitical arena.

The story of the United States from 1970 to today is the story of a battle to slow down geopolitical decline amidst a worldwide economic stagnation: the Trilateral Commission and the G-7 (as ways of inducing western Europe and Japan not to move away from U.S. control too fast), the Washington Consensus and neo-liberalism (as ways to hold back the surge forward of the South), anti-proliferation as a doctrine (as ways to push off inevitable military decline). If one wishes to take the measure of all of these efforts, one would have to say that they were at best partially successful. They did reduce the speed of the decline but did not stop it from occurring, with the United States all the while denying that it was occurring.

Enter the hawks! The hawks in the United States were never in political power from 1941-2001. They chafed. After 9/11, they finally seized the reins of power in Washington. Their view of the world was that decline was real, but that the cause of the decline was the weak will and misguided policies of the U.S. government (all U.S. governments from Roosevelt to the present President before 9/11). They believe that U.S. potential power is unbeatable provided only that it is exercised. They are not unilateralists by default, but unilateralists by preference. They believe that unilateralism is itself a demonstration of power and a reinforcement of power.

The second thing that is going on is the North-South struggle, which will be a major focus of world conflict in the next 25-50 years. From the point of view of the South, there are several different ways of conducting this struggle. One mode is military-confrontational. That is the path that Saddam Hussein has chosen. The reasoning that lies behind this position is Bismarckian. Only if the South achieves greater political unity and greater real military strength will it be able to get its fair share of the world's resources. Its geopolitical strategy should be built around these premises. Hence, Saddam Hussein has always pushed for greater Arab unification (around him as leader, to be sure) and for obtaining so-called weapons of mass destruction. Ergo, everything the hawks say about him is true, except for one thing: that he is reckless, and likely to use such weapons readily. Quite the contrary. He has shown himself to be a relatively prudent, careful chess player, but one willing to make bold moves (and then retreat, if they prove to be mistakes or get him into a blocked position).

Personally, I find him an extremely terrible dictator, and I do not trust his virtue. But I see no reason to believe that he would use weapons of mass destruction more readily or recklessly than the United States or Israel (or any other power that has them, for that matter). I certainly do not believe that proliferation is stoppable in the middle run. And I am not at all sure that the world would be more peaceful were it to be stopped. The fact that the Soviet Union had the hydrogen bomb was a major explanation of why the Cold War was cold. We have gone from one to eight known possessors of nuclear weapons between 1945 and today, and there will be 20 more in the next 25 years. Iraq will be one of them, with or without Saddam Hussein.

The third structural trend to take into account in evaluating the present situation is the economic rise and geopolitical hesitations of western Europe and Japan. No longer economically dependent on the United States, increasingly chafing at U.S. unilateralism, uncomfortable about U.S. cultural arrogance, western Europe and Japan remain hesitant to engage in actions that would deeply offend the United States. So their role on the world scene now is one of considerable timidity - on almost all issues. This is partly the heritage of Cold War gratitudes, partly the result of sharing some geopolitical interests as part of the North, partly a generational issue (the younger are less timid). This hesitancy will not last. By 2010, it will have disappeared completely. But for the moment, it still operates and explains current positions.

Putting together these three realities - the fact that the hawks are not open to persuasion, the fact that the South is indeed seeking to strengthen itself militarily, and the fact that western Europe and Japan are not willing yet to be full actors on the scene - will enable anyone to analyze and even predict the immediately likely (and increasingly unpleasant) occurrences on the current world scene.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Lula: Hope Conquered Fear (1 November 2002)

On Oct. 28, on winning the Brazilian election, Luis Inacio de Silva ("Lula") told the crowd and the world: "Today, Brazil voted for change. Hope conquered fear." This phrase captures exactly what happened, and underlines how remarkable this event is in a world in which, especially in the last year, fear has been conquering hope almost everywhere.

The editor of the Uruguayan paper, Brecha, hailed this election as "the greatest triumph of the Latin American left in all its history," a rejection of the "bitter taste of the promises of the gurus of the free market." The reaction of popular forces throughout Latin America has been one of joy and marvel. The reaction of the forces of neoliberalism and the spirit of Davos has been one of uncertainty as to what to do. They have waffled. They have explained the triumph by the fact that Lula and his party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (or PT), "moved to the center." But they are not so sure of that, since the political leaders and the media of the north have been making statement after statement, telling Lula that he must move to the center.

The only comparable event in the last decade has been the triumph of the African National Congress in South Africa in 1994. A look at what has happened there may give us some understanding of what is happening in Brazil. Let me begin with what is comparable in the two situations. First, both represent the triumph of progressive forces, after a very long struggle, in the economically most powerful state in its region - a triumph that seemed most improbable even a decade before. Indeed, as recently as three months ago, most commentators were predicting that Lula would win a plurality in the first round, and be defeated in the second round. Instead he won with 61% of the vote.

In South Africa, the coming to power of the ANC ended the era of apartheid and established majority rule. In Brazil, the coming to power of the PT meant the election of a workers' party in a country in which the middle class had always held the reins of power. In both cases, the vote was overwhelming. In both cases, the transition was peaceful and uncontested by the military which, in both countries, had once played a central (and reactionary) political role.

In both cases, this peaceful transition was made possible not merely by popular support for the winning party but by crucial behind-the-scenes discussions with some key sectors of the business world who gave tacit or even active support to the transition in return for a sort of guarantee that the new government would play by at least some of the world financial rules these business strata thought essential to their survival. In the case of South Africa, eight years later, this deal has held more or less. In the case of Brazil, we may expect the same.

Why was such a deal made? From the point of view of the business strata, the deal was made because a compromise made sense. They feared they would lose considerably in a showdown with a left government, even if eventually they might bring about its downfall. They saw the incoming government (ANC, PT) as run by capable, intelligent persons who had popular support and whose efforts at reform, however radical, would be "reasonable." On the part of the incoming popular forces, they knew they were being elected to bring about improvement in the economic situation of ordinary people, and they feared that a radical withdrawal of large business investment from their country would bring about the opposite, and quite quickly. For both sides, it was a pragmatic arrangement.

The question has been, is today, was it worth it from the point of view of popular forces? Within the ANC and the PT, there were three groups at the moment of accession to power: a group of pragmatic persons, little constrained by ideological commitment, who saw the coming to power and the staying in power as the primary consideration of their policies; a second group, more committed to the historical ideology of the movement, but who also saw the necessity of holding the party together if they were to achieve even part of their objectives; and a third group, quite small, who were ready to condemn and oppose any deviation from a traditional left ideology.

It is this second group who walk the narrowest path, and who have the greatest difficulty in maintaining their compass and their influence. In South Africa, this second group has an institutional base in the so-called partners of the ANC, which are the trade-union federation (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). Eight years later, COSATU and the SACP are often publicly critical of the government but remain supportive allies. They have continued to be influential. In Brazil, there is no formal equivalent, although the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) may play that role. In both countries, the third group has been thus far extremely small and relatively inconsequential.

There are of course differences between the two situations. When the ANC came to power in 1994, the world-economy was in a relatively better shape, and the South African government was not burdened with commitments to the IMF. Furthermore, the struggle against apartheid had a worldwide resonance which made Mandela into a sort of world culture hero. Both the PT and Lula are less well-known, at least outside Latin America. And while Lula is a very attractive personality, he may not match the world charisma of Mandela.

But, on the other hand, Lula and the PT have some other things going for them. Latin America is turning leftward, as can be seen by what has been happening in Central America, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina among other places. There is a new mood sweeping the continent, and it is the mood of the spirit of Porto Alegre. Lula has incarnated that spirit from the beginning, and he is now in a position to back it with the resources and prestige of the Brazilian government.

If some sectors of the Brazilian business strata are backing him, it is not only as a pis aller, but also because they hope he will reinforce the ability of Brazilian business to stand up to U.S.-controlled multinationals. They hope he will reinforce Mercosur and be a force of constructive resistance to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA, or ALCA). If the Brazilian military is not unhappy he is elected, it is because they stand in strong opposition to the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia, and hope he will help to stem the spread of the violence.

Lula in power is not Sendero Luminoso or the Chinese Cultural Revolution in power. The PT will be a powerful progressive regime in Latin America's most important country, one of the economically consequential countries in the world-system, a force behind which the Latin American left and center-left can rally in the years to come. Lula may be quite prudent about the financial policies of the Brazilian government. He may nonetheless stand as a real barrier to the neoliberal thrust in Latin America and the world. Not only has hope conquered fear in Brazil but hope engenders hope throughout the world. As the world faces the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the consequent chaotic turmoil this will encourage, Lula's election is a sign that we may fight back.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Bush: Fear Conquered Hope (15 November 2002)

Mr. Bush had his way - in the U.S. elections, in the U.N. Security Council. With Lula's victory, hope conquered fear. With Bush's victory, fear conquered hope. There is much satisfaction now in Mr. Bush's administration. They think they can get their program fully carried out. They are counting on a Congress and a Security Council that will continue to follow the Bush agenda. They think they have Saddam Hussein cornered.

What is their agenda? The interesting thing to note is that they have a short-term agenda and a long-term agenda, but absolutely no middle-term agenda. Their short-term agenda within the United States is to satisfy their three constituencies - the economic conservatives, the social conservatives, and the macho militarists. The economic conservatives are interested primarily in two things: lower taxes and reduction of the constraints environmentalist considerations have put on them. The social conservatives are interested in legislating sexuality, harsher penalties for lawbreakers, and freedom to own and use guns. The macho militarists are interested in enhancing U.S. military power and using it.

These short-term objectives can be implemented by making the tax cuts permanent, ending the estate tax, appointing rightwing judges to the federal courts, and invading Iraq. Now that they have the power to do these things, they will do them. The one thing one can say about the Bush administration is that they don't waffle. They only make the concessions they absolutely have to make; otherwise they bulldoze their way through all the forests. No doubt there will be a few obstacles in their way - an occasional difficulty with the Congress (a Senate filibuster or two, a few "moderate" Republicans who hesitate to go all the way on particular bills), an attempt by other countries to interpret Saddam Hussein's future actions less dyspeptically than the version we shall hear from Condoleeza Rice. But the Bush administration's response to obstacles is brutal action to overcome them. And since it seemed to have worked this November, they have no incentive to mend their manners.

But why did it work? It seems clear that the overwhelming answer is fear - the fears of the American people, the fears of the rest of the world. September 11 shook up the American people. But if it did so, it is because they were already anxious, and September 11 simply crystallized a vague sentiment into a pressing concern. The American people are afraid of terrorists; they are afraid of Moslems; they are afraid of strangers. It is the sense that the U.S. is no longer as strong as it once was, is no longer as respected as it once was, is no longer as appreciated as it once was. It is the fear that the American standard of living is in danger - the fear of inflation and of deflation, the fear of losing employment. It is the fear that, as they live longer, they no longer live as well, because the health care for the older part of the population is far weaker than people expect and want. President Bush responds to that fear not by saying there is no problem, but by saying that there is a problem to which he has a remedy - tough, determined action. The Bush administration exudes confidence in itself and this attracts fearful people, enough at least who give their vote to toughness.

Of course, none of this explains how the U.S. got a 15-0 vote in the Security Council for its resolution - one that was a bit watered down no doubt, but nonetheless one that permits the U.S. to proceed and, in due time, to invade Iraq. What accounts for this vote is also fear. But it is not Saddam Hussein who inspired this fear. There is not a single member of the Security Council which, in the absence of the drive by the U.S., would have brought this issue to the table. There is not a single member who really believes that Saddam Hussein poses a short-term threat to the peace of the world, or who thinks that action against Iraq is a priority concern of the world community.

So why did they all in the end vote for the resolution - even France, Russia, and China, even Syria? The answer is very simple. They are all afraid of the Bush administration. It has made it very clear that it will take whatever punitive action it can against any country which gets in its way seriously - not merely Mauritius or Syria, but Germany and Canada. So each of these countries has had to weigh the short-term consequences of defiance. And the price seemed high. Thus, although they wiggled, and got some (not too many) face-saving concessions, in the end they buckled. There was once a time when the friends and allies of the U.S. lined up happily behind U.S. leadership in a world crisis. That time is over. Now they line up unhappily because they are afraid, not of the U.S. in the abstract, but of the Bush administration concretely.

One thing that has made this possible has been the worldwide collapse of the reformist center. There is a remarkable parallel, largely unnoticed in the press, between the last French elections and the last U.S. elections. The initial expectation was that the Socialists would win in France. The initial expectation was that the Democrats would win in the U.S. They both lost the crucial subvote by a very narrow margin. Le Pen edged out Jospin for second place in the first round by a tiny difference. A shift of 50,000 votes in two states of the U.S. would have given the Democrats control of the U.S. Senate.

There was a common factor to the two defeats - the exhaustion of the historic program of the two parties. In both countries, large numbers of voters said that the party no longer stood for anything, that it was trying to imitate the conservatives, while losing its base. This is a reflection of the long-standing decline of the traditional center-left movements, which once dominated the world scene. Following the elections, both parties lack a clear leader and a clear program. They are beset by internal debates about whether they should move further to the center (and try to whittle away votes from the conservatives) or move to the left (and try to recoup the votes of the disillusioned). It is not an easy choice tactically, because either choice will lose as well as gain votes. And neither tactic will work if there is no clear program. But will there be?

So, in the short run, the Bush agenda seems likely to prevail. In the long run, the Bush administration knows too what it wants - few restraints on the acquisition of wealth (no matter how much this results in national and world economic and social polarization); a rollback on the liberal social mores that have been enveloping the world scene; and de facto authoritarian structures, which define democracy as making minor choices among elite groups every few years.

But can they get from the short-term agenda to the long-term agenda? The Bush administration simply assumes that it can; it doesn't waste its time thinking about the middle term. This is its Achilles heel. Can it really contain the havoc the Iraq invasion will cause in Middle East politics? Are average Americans really ready to devote the lives of their children and their money on behalf of Bush's agenda, especially if it doesn't pay off in security and prosperity, which it is unlikely to do? Can the dollar really stand the additional strain on its credibility? Can the U.S. really block nuclear proliferation? Can it really hold in check the populist upsurge that is occurring in Latin America? How soon will China, Japan, and Korea come to terms with each other in ways that the U.S. won't like?

The aggressive opening chess moves of the Bush administration have been spectacular. But have they been wise, even from their point of view? Can fear really triumph over hope for very long?

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Aciu! Bush Fiddles While Rome Burns (1 December 2002)

Aciu is the Lithuanian word for "thank you." This is what the crowd in Vilnius shouted when Pres. Bush addressed them, saying that now that Lithuania had joined NATO, an attack on Lithuania would be considered an attack on the United States. The President was very pleased. He said, thank you. The United States and President Bush are popular in East-Central Europe. This is about the last region of the world, other than Israel, where Pres. Bush can be assured of such a reception today. So Bush bathed in the cheers of this friendly zone. But like Nero, he was fiddling while Rome is burning. The United States is burning, and President Bush seems completely unaware of this. So, unfortunately, do most Americans. Like Nero, Bush is sure that he can do what he wants, and this arrogant naivety makes him blind to the political realities of the world and the nature of the real alternatives any American president has in the twenty-first century. Bush thinks this is the age of the American empire and savors it. The world left does not help clarity in agreeing that this is indeed the age of the American empire, even if they denounce it. A world in political chaos is not an imperial world. And we would all do well to absorb this elementary fact into our consciousness.

The massive misperception of reality will only increase the level of damage and suffering that will be the consequence of the chaos from which no one, least of all the United States, will benefit. Bush is about to lead the United States into a war with Iraq, and he will do so even if the U.N. inspectors find nothing of significance to report. Richard Perle recently told a group of U.K. Labor Party M.P.'s that the fact that U.N. inspectors would find nothing would be politically meaningless, since the U.S. already knows that Saddam Hussein is violating the U.N. resolution and will act on its knowledge. The M.P.'s were said to have been shocked. The groundwork is being laid in the denigration of the U.N. effort. The press is full these days of long explanations by members of the Bush administration and their media acolytes as to why the head of the U.N.'s inspection efforts, Hans Blix, is programmed to find nothing, which therefore means that he and his team can be ignored (and no doubt will be).

The U.S. press is also full of attacks on Saudi Arabia - by members of the U.S. Congress, the press, and pundits - for not having decided to support unreservedly the attack on Iraq (as well as for parallel sins in the past). This is said to be embarrassing for Pres. Bush, who is apparently still hoping to be able to twist the arms of the Saudis into at least passive cooperation with the invasion of Iraq. This political attack on the Saudis however is being orchestrated by the right wing of the right wing, who are seeking not Saudi Arabia's cooperation but Saudi Arabia's destruction. Who knows? They may succeed.

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden has not been exactly inactive. There have been two major attacks on Western soft targets - in Bali and in Mombasa - both of which are probably his doing, or that of his allies. And he has released a long letter to the American people, which The Observer (London) published in English on Nov. 24. It doesn't tell us anything new. What is striking about the long letter is its total militancy and its clarity of detail about a whole series of political issues around the globe. It is not illiterate screech. He has made complaints about Israel the centerpiece of this letter, which was not true of his previous letter, but he does not neglect other issues. The United States clearly has an intelligent enemy, who denounces the U.S. repeatedly for its double standards.

In terms of world geopolitics, the world has seen three major national elections in the second half of 2002: Germany, the United States, and Brazil. Yes. Bush won the U.S. but he lost Germany and Brazil. There is a fourth key election coming up very soon - South Korea. That election is now said to be close. A defeat for Bush there would not be a source of joy in the White House. Bush even lost a less important, but still meaningful, election - in Ecuador. There a populist soldier, Col. Lucio Gutiérrez, defeated a super neoliberal opponent. What is significant about this is not merely that the victor's rhetoric was populist, but that Gutiérrez is someone with partially indio ancestry, and he was supported by the strongest federation of indigenous organizations in the Americas, CONAIE. He is a hero of the failed attempt of these same forces to come to power in a coup two years ago (see Commentary No. 33, Feb. 1, 2000). Now he was elected by a clear majority. It is true that Gutiérrez is speaking a cautious language on economic issues, but he will be an ally of Lula and not of Bush in the coming debates on a pan-American free trade zone (FTAA/ALCA). And he will be a voice for compromise and peace in Colombia, a development the Bush administration and the present President of Colombia are doing everything in their power to keep from happening.

Bush faces a difficult war in Iraq; a collapsing facade of pro-American "moderate" regimes in the Middle East; a very uncertain world economy, which will be made worse by the Iraq adventure; populism in the Americas; an ever stronger China combined with a general recalcitrance in Northeast Asia (that is, Japan, South Korea, and China) to support the tough line on North Korea which the Bush administration espouses. But all of this is almost minor in its consequences for the United States in comparison with the determined efforts of the United States to isolate itself from its hitherto closest friends. Bush won't invite the Prime Minister of Canada to his ranch. He remains frigid to the Chancellor of Germany. This is because neither thinks it's a terribly smart idea to invade Iraq. And there are many in the Bush administration who think that Bush's response to their heresy has been much too mild. They argue that these so-called closest allies of the United States are unreliable, foolish, even cowardly, and certainly wrong (about almost everything). They feel that western Europe and Canada should be put in their place. They may soon add Japan and South Korea to the list of schoolboys to reprimand, if necessary punish.

They have written off NATO because they can't count on it to do their bidding. The east-central Europeans may be celebrating their entry into NATO, feeling that they will thereby get closer to the U.S. They will soon learn that the U.S. is in the process of scuttling NATO by making it irrelevant to world politics. But can the United States even survive in today's world, not to speak of do well, without the strong support of those who have been its closest allies in the past fifty years? I doubt it very much. Rome is burning, and Bush is fiddling.

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

The Politics of Multilateralism (15 December 2002)

As we know, the Bush administration has been divided between what we may call the "unilateralists" (presumably led by Rumsfeld and Cheney) and the "multilateralists" (presumably led by Colin Powell). We now know that immediately on Sept. 12, 2001, Rumsfeld recommended war on Iraq as a response to the Al-Qaeda attacks. Of course, he and Cheney had been signatories in 2000 before they took office of a document calling for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. These people not only wished to end Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction but also change the regime and indeed occupy the country. Furthermore, they wished on principle to do this unilaterally, without asking anyone's permission.

As we also know, they ran into a lot of political objection from important sources - the Secretary of State, the so-called "old Bushies" (close to the President's father), Tony Blair, and some Republican Senators. All of them argued that the same objective could be achieved via "multilateral" action, and without the negative political fallout in which a "unilateral" action would result. This led to the multilateral resolutions - one in the U.S. Congress and one in the U.N. Security Council. Both resolutions gave the Bush administration a green light for what they wanted to do, with some minor amendments and the delay inherent in sending back the inspectors. But what the Bush administration lost in slight delay they more than gained in greater legitimation in the eyes of the "multilateralists" around the world.

Multilateralism is the fig leaf that has made it possible for all sorts of "centrist" forces to say that they agreed with the objective - ending Iraq's ability to employ weapons of mass destruction - without endorsing actions by the U.S. that were "unilateral." But is multilateral action to achieve the same end really better? What this sleight of hand has done is to eliminate any real discussion of the legitimacy of the objective in the first place. Why should the five permanent members of the Security Council - the U.S., Great Britain, France, Russia, and China - have the political and moral right to stock (and use) weapons of mass destruction but other presumably sovereign states not have this right?

If you press the question, the answer inevitably comes down to a moral judgment. The big five can be "trusted" with such weapons, which they would only use defensively. Other countries, particularly if they have regimes that are dictatorial and have foreign policies hostile to the United States, cannot be "trusted." Myself, I don't trust any government, and I mean any government, not to use such weapons if they thought it in their national interest to do so (which might mean just their national survival, but might also mean simply maintaining their overall standard of living).

The moral distinction between the trustworthy and the untrustworthy has been around throughout the history of the modern world-system. And it has always justified a doctrine of "interventionism" in which the "civilized" tame the barbarians. If one goes back to the sixteenth century, we have the famous debate between Las Casas, the Bishop of Chiapas, and Sepúlveda as to the moral rights of the Spaniards in their treatment of the Indians. One of Sepúlveda's key arguments was that the Spaniards had to intervene (militarily and religiously) in order to save innocent lives, which he believed were threatened by the barbaric practices of the Indians. The answer of Las Casas to this argument was that one could intervene to save human lives only if the process of saving them does not cause greater harm. And there we have the debate to this day.

In the nineteenth century, all sorts of European theoreticians justified the imposition of colonial rule in Asia and Africa on the grounds that they were thereby ending barbaric practices (for example, slavery, which these same Europeans had been practicing up to a short time before; or alleged cannibalism; or suttee in India). In the 1930's, the United States was split between the "isolationists" and the "interventionists" who were those who wished to join actively in the fight against the Nazis. In the period after 1945, there were many who wished to "liberate" countries from Communist rule, others who wished to support liberation movements against colonial or racist powers, and most recently those who wished to intervene - in the Balkans, in Africa - to prevent "genocides."

I have run the gamut of varieties of interventionism to indicate that the moral issues are not simple ones. We all believe in interventionism in some instances and fight it in others. The modern world-system is however based on an anomaly. It enshrines on the one hand the so-called sovereign rights of all states, which logically and legally define all outside interventions as aggression and illegitimate but on the other hand an implicit natural law argument that there exist overriding moral values underlying the world-system (which these days we are calling human rights), and those who violate these values have no right to remain in power anywhere.

How then do we deal with this anomaly? Well, we can deal with it as a moral-philosophical problem to be debated. Or we can make clear judgments which imply real action in the political arena. In fact, not too many people spend time discussing the moral-political dilemmas. And the people who make clear judgments only matter if they have the power to carry them out. So, when these clear judgments are made by the Bush administration, they do what they are doing. And when these clear judgments are made by people in less powerful structures, these people are usually condemned to do nothing, or at most to engage in trying to sabotage the actions of the powerful.

But the Las Casas principle - intervention to save lives is only justified if it doesn't cause more damage than it prevents - is a good guide to legitimate action in the world arena. And those that are supporting "multilateral" action to end what they perceive as the risk to human lives incarnated by Saddam Hussein's continuing to be in power and to have weapons of mass destruction ought to be asking themselves whether the "multilateral" action they are recommending meets the Las Casas standard. This is a moral and political decision that has to be based on a close reading of the present situation and the probable consequences of an invasion of Iraq.

When Tony Blair says, as he did a year ago or so, that inaction is not an option, one has to ask, and ask very seriously, why not?

Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

2011 Center for a World in Balance