Global Learning
  • Home
  • Defenders of Cuban Socialism
    • UN Charter
    • Declaration of Human Rights
    • Bandung
    • New International Economic Order
    • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Substack editorial column
  • New Cold War articles
  • Friends of Socialist China articles
  • Global Research articles
  • Counterpunch articles
  • Cuba and the world-system
    • Table of Contents and chapter summaries
    • About the author
    • Endorsements
    • Obtaining your copy
  • Blog ¨The View from the South¨
    • Blog Index
    • Posts in reverse chronological order
  • The Voice of Third World Leaders
    • Asia >
      • Ho Chi Minh
      • Xi Jinping, President of China
    • Africa >
      • Kwame Nkrumah
      • Julius Nyerere
    • Latin America >
      • Fidel Castro
      • Hugo Chávez
      • Raúl Castro >
        • 55th anniversary speech, January 1, 1914
        • Opening Speech, CELAC
        • Address at G-77, June 15, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, July 5, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, December 20, 2014
        • Speech on Venezuela at ALBA, 3-17-2015
        • Declaration of December 18, 2015 on USA-Cuba relations
        • Speech at ALBA, March 5, 2018
      • Miguel Díaz-Canel >
        • UN address, September 26, 2018
        • 100th annivesary, CP of China
      • Evo Morales >
        • About Evo Morales
        • Address to G-77 plus China, January 8, 2014
        • Address to UN General Assembly, September 24, 2014
      • Rafael Correa >
        • About Rafael Correa
        • Speech at CELAC 1/29/2015
        • Speech at Summit of the Americas 2015
      • Nicolás Maduro
      • Cristina Fernández
      • Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations >
        • Statement at re-opening of Cuban Embassy in USA, June 20, 2015
        • The visit of Barack Obama to Cuba
        • Declaration on parliamentary coup in Brazil, August 31, 2016
        • Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba on Venezuela, April 13, 2019
      • ALBA >
        • Declaration of ALBA Political Council, May 21, 2019
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 17, 2015
        • Declaration on Venezuela, April 10, 2017
      • Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) >
        • Havana Declaration 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 26
    • Martin Luther King, Jr.
    • International >
      • Peoples’ Summit 2015
      • The Group of 77 >
        • Declaration on a New World Order 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela 3/26/2015
      • BRICS
      • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Readings
    • Charles McKelvey, Cuba in Global Context
    • Piero Gleijeses, Cuba and Africa
    • Charles McKelvey, Chávez and the Revolution in Venezuela
    • Charles McKelvey, The unfinished agenda of race in USA
    • Charles McKelvey, Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist Revolutionary
  • Recommended Books
  • Contact

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Recommended books on Amazon.com; click on image of book to connect

The Military-Industrial Complex

8/29/2013

0 Comments

 
      In a commentary to my August 27 post, Dr. Yuri Grigoryan, a professor retired from the Physiology Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, rightly expresses his indignation at a possible US military action against Syria.  He expresses alarm at the unconstrained aspirations of the US military-industrial complex.

      The United States developed its enormous military capacity during the twentieth century, a necessary component of its ascent to economic, financial, military, political and ideological domination of the world-system by the post-World War II era.  Its ascent began during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, fueled by lucrative commercial relations with slaveholders in the Caribbean and the US South, facilitating the development of textile manufacturing and other industries in the northeastern section of the country.  During the first half of the twentieth century, the United States turned its growing capital accumulation to investments in the auto and steel industries, the most profitable industries of the era, which further fueled US ascent.  During World War II, it converted its industries into the service of war needs, thus establishing war industries, a war economy, and the military-industrial complex.  
 
     The United States emerged from World War II with unchallenged dominance.  Its territory had not been affected by the war, and thus it did not experience violent destruction of its industrial infrastructure, as occurred with Germany and Japan.  British industry was still relatively intact, but it had been surpassed by the US ascent.  The Soviet Union had successfully converted its industries to a war economy during the war, utilizing highly effective state planning.  But the Soviet Union, in spite of an impressive industrial growth after 1917, was still significantly less advanced than the United States.  The growing strength of the Soviet Union was not really a threat to the United States, because the Soviet Union sought peaceful co-existence with the United States, in which the Soviet area of influence close to its borders in Eastern Europe and Asia would be secure, leaving to the United States vast areas of Latin America, Africa, and South East Asia for neocolonial exploitation. 
 
     The real threat to the United States was from the Third World revolutions, which challenged the basic structures of the neocolonial world-system.  In response to this global challenge from below, the United States maintained and developed its war industries, using Cold War and anti-communist ideology to justify this turn to a permanent war economy, disdaining a post-war reconversion of its industry to peaceful purposes, as had been envisioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. With its enormous military capacity, the United States became the global policeman, claiming to act against “communism” and in defense of “democracy,” when in reality it was defending its neocolonial interests.  Thus the military-industrial complex became solidified as an integral and necessary part of the US economy, a fact noted with concern by President and formerly General Dwight Eisenhower by the time of his retirement in 1960.

     The United States began to decline in the 1960s and 1970s, and it no longer is a dominant economic and financial power.  However, it continues to be the dominant military power of the planet.  Its military expenses are approximately equal to those of the rest of the nations of the world combined.  This high level of military expenditures contributes to the further erosion of its productive and financial capacities.  
 
      As a weakened economic and financial power, but a dominant military and ideological power, the United States can be expected to continue to pursue its interests through military means, inventing any pretext as justification.  The unsubstantiated claim that the government of Syria has used chemical weapons against its own people is far from the first such pretext.  The US dependence on military action to attain economic, financial and political objectives places all of humanity at risk.

       The problem can be resolved only by the people of the United States, who must come to consciousness of the fact that US foreign policy is designed to promote the interests of US corporations and finance capital and to maintain the United States as a neocolonial global power, and not to promote democratic values and protect democratic structures.  In protecting the short-term interests of US corporations and banks, US policy undermines the economic, social, and physical security of the popular classes and sectors in the United States.  So the people must develop alternative political structures that can bring into power alternative political leaders who would be committed to protecting the interests and needs of the majority.  This is a difficult task, but not impossible, because many conditions favor such a political transformation.  And however difficult the task may be, it is our duty in the present historic moment.  These are themes that we will be discussing in future posts.

      I write these words on August 28, 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, in which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.  Dr. King was a powerful, articulate, and eloquent critic of the moral evils of racism, poverty and war, and as such was a prophetic opponent of the military-industrial complex. 


 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author: Charles McKelvey

    Retired professor, writer,  and Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist revolutionary

    Categories

    All
    American Revolution
    Blog Index
    Bolivia
    Charismatic Leaders
    China
    Critique Of The Left
    Cuban History
    Cuba Today
    Ecuador
    Environment
    French Revolution
    Gay Rights
    Haitian Revolution
    Knowledge
    Latin American History
    Latin American Right
    Latin American Unity
    Marx
    Marxism-Leninism
    Mexican Revolution
    Miscellaneous
    Neocolonialism
    Neoliberalism
    Nicaragua
    North-South Cooperation
    Presidential Elections 2016
    Press
    Public Debate In USA
    Race
    Religion And Revolution
    Revolution
    Russian Revolution
    South-South Cooperation
    Third World
    Trump
    US Ascent
    US Imperialism
    Vanguard
    Venezuela
    Vietnam
    Wallerstein
    Women And Revolution
    World History
    World-System
    World-System Crisis

    Archives

    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    January 2013

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

More Ads


website by Sierra Creation