The Weapons Culture
excerpted from the book
Beyond Hypocrisy
by Edward S. Herman
published by South End Press, 1992
Defense, Containment, Aggression, and National Security
At the end of World War II, the United States enjoyed a historically
l unique position of global power. The war had revived its previously
depressed economy, teaching a lesson in "Military Keynesianism"
that was quickly incorporated into establishment practice, if
not thought. The war had also seriously weakened U.S. rivals:
enemies Germany and Japan were defeated and devastated physically,
and allies like Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union were
also debilitated. The Soviet Union had been ravaged and suffered
enormous casualties. Maintaining a large army, but exhausted and
in no position to challenge the United States, the Soviet Union
insisted only on preserving a security zone of dominated governments
occupied at the end of the war and from which attacks had been
launched against it.
In the Third World, the United States was confronted with
popular movements threatening to break out of centuries-long subservience,
exploitation, and oligarchic-colonial rule. The United States
was well positioned to fight against these popular upheavals and
to enlarge its own spheres of influence, which it did on a global
basis from 1945 onward. In the process, it often displaced its
own allies as the dominant power in important colonial areas like
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indochina, Pakistan, Thailand, and Indonesia,
among other places.
U.S. leaders were, for the most part, well aware of their
power and opportunity, and of Soviet weakness.' National Security
Council Report 68, prepared just before the beginning of the Korean
War in 1950, spelled out a "roll-back" strategy in which
a rearmed United States would engage in systematic subversion
of the Soviet satellite states, and even of the Soviet Union itself,
by means that included the support of armed revolt. the United
States was actively involved in roll-back operations in 1949 under
a CIA program of organizing guerrilla bands of "former SS
men" and ClA-trained Ukrainian operatives within the Soviet
Union, parachuting in military supplies. These operations, along
with the reconstruction of the Nazi intelligence apparatus of
Reinhard Gehlen as the official espionage corps of the new West
German state, also prior to the Korean war, were not featured
in the U.S. media. The Korean war came along very opportunely
to help justify the desired arms buildup.
NSC 68 was similar to the Reagan era Pentagon "Defense
Guidance, 1984 88" report, which also spelled out a program
of active destabilization of the Soviet empire by the deliberately
beggaring effects of an arms race as well as by aid to armed groups
within the Soviet bloc. The significance of these documents is
that they presume an offensive U.S. policy against an enemy perceived
as vulnerable; they project U.S. plans to subvert and "bury"
the Soviet Union. NSC-68 does speak of the Soviet design to conquer
the world, but this was an ideological construct that provided
the necessary dire threat to rationalize a forward strategy. NSC
68, like the Reagan era Defense Guidance statement, rests on the
assumption of Soviet weakness and vulnerability, and does not
use language suggesting fear of aggression and attack. This is
why these documents have been essentially suppressed in mainstream
media and discourse, which instead gave great play to the rhetorical
boast of Khrushchev that "I am going to bury you."
The national security elite also recognized in NSC 68 that
taking advantage of the positive opportunities open to the United
States required a large military force and mobilized population.
Doublespeak embedded in a convenient matrix of anticommunist ideology
was essential, as the U.S. establishment was obliged to pretend
(or internalize the belief) that the huge global expansion of
the U.S. political economy on which they had embarked was "defensive"
and responsive to some external threat; that we were "containing"
somebody else who was committing "aggression" and threatening
our "national security."
The words and phrases "defense," "containment,"
"aggression," and "national security" are
core items in the doublespeak lexicon, essential ingredients of
the ink squirted out by the imperial cuttlefsh. They deflected
thought from the pro active and purposeful aspects of U.S. foreign
policy, the locus of the determining initiatives in the arms race
and conflict, the source of the bulk of the killing, and the extent
to which the fight was against indigenous, popular, and democratic
movements abroad. Epitomizing the new world of doublespeak was
the change in name of the War Department to the Defense Department
in 1947, just at the historic juncture when the United States
was embarking on a global offensive to reshape the world in accord
with its dominant corporate interests (not in "our image,"
as in the common apologetic formulation).
In Greece, where the British, and then even more aggressively,
the United States, reestablished an extreme rightwing regime of
former collaborationist elements by ten or, fraudulent elections,
and a vicious counterinsurgency war in the years 1944-1950, Stalin
extended no aid to the communist and other left rebels under siege,
and in fact strenuously opposed Yugoslavia's aid to the rebels.
Nevertheless, Truman, aided by the "bipartisan" consensus
and mainstream media, successfully made the crushing of the Greek
Left and establishment of a right-wing police state by external
(U.S.) force a "defensive" action to "contain"
Soviet expansionism. This was a model of applied doublespeak that
would be repeated often in the years to come.
And from that time till the end of the Reagan era, whenever
the United States wanted to intervene to crush some indigenous
popular movement or government not to the taste of United Fruit
Company or the national security establishment, the search would
be on for Reds, the connection would be made to the Soviet Union
(along with some lesser devils like Cuba or Libya), and the government
would be declared Marxist-Leninist and a Soviet puppet. The real
and massive intervention - by the United States - required an
Evil Empire behind the indigenous and popular forces that were
the real target. The United States would regularly impose boycotts
and escalate threats against the tiny victim, forcing it to buy
goods and arms from members of the Soviet bloc. This would then
be used to show both the aggressive intent of the victim and its
allegiance to the international communist conspiracy.
The U.S. mass media has always swallowed this line of propaganda-
even regarding Nicaragua in the 1 980s-never allowing that Nicaragua
might be getting arms from the Soviet Union in response to a genuine
threat or because of the U.S. and allied boycott, and never pointing
out that the Sandinista military threat to its neighbors was implausible,
unsupported by evidence, and rendered nonsensical by a watchful
U.S. military presence. The press has never suggested that the
linking of the victim under U.S. attack to the Soviet Union might
be a red herring designed to obscure the real reason for opposition
to the victim government The Democratic Loyal Opposition always
jumps into line for fear of being tagged Red sympathizers, and
intervention in violation of U.S. and international law proceeds
unhampered.
The case of Nicaragua in the 1980s showed that, given the
patriotic premises of the mass media and the absence of a political
opposition to contest them, lies can be institutionalized and
the truth stood on its head. This was shown earlier during the
U.S. attack on Guatemala in 1954, alleged to be a response to
Soviet aggression, although there were no Soviet troops, advisers,
or arms on the scene, and despite the fact that the government
of Guatemala had carefully avoided any formal diplomatic relations
with Soviet bloc countries out of respect for (and fear of) U.S.
sensitivities. It is true that very late in the day, with a U.S.-organized
attack in the offing and a U.S. arms boycott long in effect, the
Guatemalan government did buy a boatload of arms from Czechoslovakia,
the discovery of which created hysteria among U.S. officials and
in the U.S. press. But this is the convenient pathology of imperialism-to
bring to life a virus in the hemisphere, to decry its existence,
and to mercilessly eradicate it. Soviet control, expansionism,
and aggression in the Guatemala case was fiction, on an intellectual
par with the claims of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But
it was taken very seriously in the New York Times and media generally,
and the uncontested view was that we were behaving defensively,
containing the Soviet Union, not committing aggression to enforce
our own positive standards of rule in Guatemala.
Behind all these claims and counterclaims was the allegation
of a threat to U.S. "national security," the longstanding
"Linus blanket" in which the imperial faction and military
establishment have regularly wrapped themselves. When tied to
the threat of Communism and the Evil Empire, the cry of National
Security stills criticism, rationality, and decency. And it is
trotted out with abandon. National security is both vague and
highly elastic, so that Grenada, Nicaragua, even the entry into
the United States of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mrs. Salvador Allende,
a contingent of mothers of the massacred in El Salvador, or printed
matter from Cuba can seriously threaten it. It seems that the
national security of the United States, the greatest military
power in history, is in constant jeopardy as the country cowers
before the threats of popular movements in Nicaragua or Guatemala.
*****
Weapons in Search of Missions
During the period from 1945 to the present, a "weapons
culture" developed in the United States to serve the interests
dominating the U.S. power structure. These were mainly business
interests that benefited from military power projected abroad-the
weapons producers themselves; the oil companies that were helped
to establish themselves in the Middle East and Venezuela, which
benefited from the enforced opening of markets in Europe and elsewhere;
other resource-exploiting firms (especially in mining, timber,
and agribusiness); and other business and financial firms that
were able to take advantage of newly penetrated markets. Wonderful
contracts were written for U.S. iron, timber, and other mineral
extraction and agribusiness companies following the U.S.-sponsored
military coups in Brazil and Indonesia in 1964 and 1965. A large
military establishment funded by the taxpayer served these global
interests well.
As the weapons culture grew, the industrial interests producing
weapons and their Pentagon and congressional allies-a so called
"iron triangle" or ''military-industrial complex"
(MIC) of enormous and partially independent power, gradually emerged.
The MlC's ability to command resources rested on its service to
the transnational corporate system, as well as its own extraordinary
institutional power. It had the further advantage of providing
for our "national defense" and protecting our "national
security," and what politician would stand against funding
defense and national security, especially when the corporate establishment
(including the national media) would denounce and defund him for
selling his country short.
*****
Even when a truly lunatic boondoggle certain to intensify
the nuclear arms race was put foreword, as in the case of the
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or Star Wars program, the power
of the MIC was strong enough to preclude anything like adequate
criticism. The SDI was supposed to provide a defensive shield
in space that would intercept Soviet missiles and thus reduce
the threat of war by providing a more-or-less foolproof defense.
This extravaganza was based on fantastically complex technologies
that did not exist. Its testing as well as deployment would have
violated the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty of 1972. It was
foisted on Reagan by some of his really far out technical advisers
like General Daniel Graham of the World Anticommunist League and
the American Security Council, without prior study or approval
even from the Pentagon's technical staff. The alternative ways
of reducing the threat of nuclear war, like disarmament and a
comprehensive test ban (that would have limited the development
of new weapons and reduced the reliability of old ones) were ignored
in favor of a technological fix pleasing only to the MIC and Armageddon
far right, and beyond Rube Goldberg.
There was some criticism of SDI's technical feasibility and
probable limits as a defensive system, but it wasn't laughed off
the stage as a completely irresponsible proposal, a gigantic waste
of resources that would fuel the nuclear arms race, and a further
demonstration of Reagan's incapacity for high office. One interesting
suppression is worth noting: when the Soviets built a small ABM
system for the "defense" of Moscow in the 1960s, a frenzied
U S establishment declared it to have inherent and terrifying
offensive implications. SDI, despite its vastly greater offensive
implications, was not treated in that way; with trivial exceptions
in the mainstream press, it was portrayed as a truly defensive
system, a "noble dream", although of questionable workability.
The power laws precluded an honest discussion of the prior allegations
of the terrible threat stemming from "defensive" nuclear
systems such as ABM.
*****
Beyond
Hypocrisy