World Orders, Old and New

557 Pages·1999·2.61 MB·English

by  Noam Chomsky

NNOOAAMM CCHHOOMMSSKKYY
WORLD
ORDERS
,
OLD AND NEW
ESSENTIAL CLASSICS IN POLITICS: NOAM CHOMSKY
EB 0007 ISBN 0 7453 1345 0
London 1999
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WORLD ORDERS,
OLD AND NEW
Noam Chomsky

Pluto Press

London
4
This edition published in the UK in 1997 by
Pluto Press, 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA

Published by arrangement with the
American University in Cairo Press

Copyright ª 1994, 1996 Noam Chomsky
Maps ª 1994, 1996 Columbia University Press

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Classics in Politics: World Orders, Old and New Noam Chomsky
5
Contents
Click on number to go to page
Preface........................................................................................ 7
1 MARCHING IN PLACE................................................................ 9
1. The Cold War and Population Control.......................................9
2. New World Orders...............................................................14
3. A Test Case: Iraq and the West.............................................21
4. The Cold War Reconsidered..................................................50
National Security.....................................................................57
The Onset ..............................................................................67
The Events of the Cold War.......................................................70
Before and After......................................................................81
5. North-South/East-West.......................................................131
2. THE POLITICAL-ECONOMIC ORDER........................................146
1. Securing the Home Front....................................................148
The Enemy Within.................................................................148
Engineering Current History ....................................................164
Free Enterprise, Free Markets..................................................174
Industrial Policy for the Nineties..............................................184
2. Some Lessons of History.....................................................196
3. “The Government of the World”...........................................208
4. The Balance Sheet.............................................................222
The Traditional Victims..........................................................223
The Home Countries..............................................................239
The Return to the Fold...........................................................255
5. Looking Ahead..................................................................270
Classics in Politics: World Orders, Old and New Noam Chomsky
6
6. The Contours of the New World Order..................................305
3. HISTORY’S “GREATEST PRIZE”...............................................322
1. Updating the Monroe Doctrine.............................................325
2. Containing the Internal Enemy.............................................329
3. The Structure of Power.......................................................338
4. The Regional Actors...........................................................343
5. Seeking Peace: Stage One ..................................................353
6. Seeking Peace: The Interests of the Actors............................379
7. Seeking Peace: The Recent Phase.......................................389
8. Conquering History............................................................407
9. The Berlin Wall Falls Again.................................................416
10. After the Agreement.........................................................440
EPILOGUE: MIDDLE EAST DIPLOMACY.......................................464
1. The Framework of Rejectionism...........................................464
2. “The Peace of the Victors”..................................................468
3. The Interim Agreement: Jurisdiction.....................................471
4. The Interim Agreement: Some Applications...........................476
5. The Interim Agreement: Water.............................................484
6. Greater Jerusalem..............................................................486
7. The Broader Picture...........................................................492
NOTES.....................................................................................506
Notes to Chapter 1................................................................506
Notes to Chapter 2................................................................521
Notes to Chapter 3................................................................539

Classics in Politics: World Orders, Old and New Noam Chomsky
Preface 7
Preface
T
he material that follows is based on three lectures at the
American University in Cairo in May 1993, considerably
expanded and updated in ways that reflect, in part, the seminars,
meetings, and very enlightening personal discussions that occupied a
large part of that all-too-brief visit. There are many friends, new and old,
whom 1 would like to thank or their kindness and thoughtful
commentary. I will mention only one, Dr. Nelly Hanna, whose gracious
hospitality and tireless assistance, apart from contributing immeasurably
to the personal pleasure that my wife and I felt from a memorable
experience, helped me to understand at least something about Egypt,
past and present, in ways I could not have otherwise.
I would also like to thank a great many other friends around the
world who are part of the informal networks that have developed over
the years among people who exchange press reports, documents,
monographic studies, and all sorts of other material outside of the
standard channels, along with commentary and analysis. Being separate
from and critical of established institutions carries costs and
annoyances, but also joys and opportunities, not least the contacts that
develop with people of a similar cast of mind and with similar interests
and concerns, many of whom have to work under conditions of
considerable adversity, a not infrequent concomitant of dissidence and
intellectual independence. I have relied extensively here, as often before,
on materials that I would never have been able to discover in other
ways. I would like to list names at this point, but the people I have in
mind know who they are, and others would hardly appreciate the nature
Classics in Politics: World Orders, Old and New Noam Chomsky
Preface 8
and importance of these interactions among people who may have rarely
if ever even met, but have found ways to cooperate in very constructive
ways to escape institutional constraints.
Classics in Politics: World Orders, Old and New Noam Chomsky
Marching in Place
1
MARCHING IN PLACE

T
he fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 can be taken as the
symbolic end of an era in world affairs in which major events fell
under the ominous shadow of the Cold War, with its constant
threat of nuclear annihilation. That conventional picture is certainly not
false, but it is nevertheless partial and misleading. By uncritically
adopting it, we seriously misunderstand the recent past, and are not
well-situated to comprehend what lies ahead.

1. The Cold War and Population Control
The conventional framework of interpretation has served very well the
interests of those who held the reins. It provided an efficient mechanism
of “population control,” to borrow some of the jargon of
counterinsurgency doctrine. Control of its domestic population is the
major task of any state that is dominated by particular sectors of the
domestic society and therefore functions primarily in their interest; that
is, any “really existing state.” The two superpowers of the Cold War era
were at opposite extremes of the contemporary spectrum with regard to
internal freedom and democracy, but the problem of population control
was common to their domestic power structures: in the Soviet Union,
the military-bureaucratic network established by Lenin and Trotsky as
Marching in Place 10
they took power in October 1917, moving quickly to crush all socialist
and other popular tendencies; in the United States, the industrial-
financial-commercial sector, concentrated and interlinked, highly class
conscious, and increasingly transnational in the scope of its planning,
management, and operations.
The Cold War confrontation provided easy formulas to justify criminal
action abroad and entrenchment of privilege and state power at home.
Without the annoying need for thought or credible evidence, apologists
on both sides could explain reflexively that however regrettable, the acts
were undertaken for reasons of “national security” in response to the
threat of the cruel and menacing superpower enemy. An ancillary
convention comes into play as policy shifts for tactical reasons, or
invocation of the threat is no longer needed, or its absurdity becomes too
manifest to conceal. At that stage, the fears that were whipped up are to
be seen as exaggerated by understandable Cold War passions. Now we
will “change course” and be more realistic—until the next episode
requires that the record be replayed. The routine is familiar to the point
of boredom through the Cold War years.
A useful corollary is that problems faced by the victims of our
depredations—Vietnamese, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and a host of
others—are their own fault, since whatever we may have done is now
relegated to ancient and irrelevant history. A similar stance has been
common more generally as older forms of colonialism are replaced by
more efficient modes of subjugation.
As the Soviet Union disappeared from the scene, the doctrinal system
adopted standard procedures without missing a beat. The entire record
of the Cold War years is to be deposited in the archives, the slate
washed clean of terror, aggression, economic warfare, and other crimes
that have taken an awesome human toll. Whatever happened was the
Classics in Politics: World Orders, Old and New Noam Chomsky