Law of Uneven Development and Calculating Strengths of Contending Powers - Ideological Studies Centre
-  U.S. claims of
superiority involve the role of the military
and the creation of the military bureaucracy, which were both greatly
expanded during and after World War II, including the massive
productive
forces and bureaucracy needed for building nuclear weapons. The
national security apparatus also got formed, including the CIA, the
National Security Council, the Defense Department, and the Joint
Chiefs of Staff which represent all branches of the military in an
effort to unite them. The rationale given at that time was that to
operate in
an international order it is necessary to be able to give a precise
measure of the strengths of all the contending powers. Everything has
to be made in some sense intelligible, or measurable, in order to
make the calculation they claim is required of relative strengths of
all
the powers.
These
efforts at calculating strengths are the U.S. response to a law
of social development that is independent of their will, the law of
uneven development. Lenin said all powers make a calculation of all
other powers and themselves. It has to be something which can be
calculated using things like levels of productivity, armed forces,
morale, etc. In making such calculations, the rulers contend with what
is necessarily a measure of strength that is unequal because of
historical developments, like uneven economic development and such
things, which are independent of their will. This is a different way of
looking at the matter than histories coming out now from the Quincy
Institute on Responsible Statecraft, for example, which say the U.S.
planned to become a world superpower even before World War II. These
think tanks all give different considerations of U.S. policy
objectives,
which have nothing to do with what states are compelled to do,
independent of their will, which is to come up with a measure of
strength of the contending powers and ways to test that measure. One
of the main ways used to test that measure is brinkmanship.
Brinkmanship refers to the practice of a country pushing
another country or dangerous conflict or event to the limits, to assess
responses and in hopes of achieving the outcome which it sees as
favourable to itself. The
conceptions of national interest and security developed by the U.S.
were not based on the sovereignty of nations big or small or similar UN
standards, but on their "rules-based international order." This is what
is currently being pushed by the U.S.-led aggressive war alliance,
NATO, and explains its brinkmanship in the Mediterranean and the
Asia-Pacific region.The high ideals of peace, democracy, human rights
and economic prosperity can no longer cover up the open declaration of
U.S. intent to dominate no matter what tensions this creates. The
brinkmanship poses a very real danger of wars breaking out. The basis
of the conception of self-defence promoted not only by NATO but also by
the U.S. and Israel serves their claims to be defending their place
within their so-called rules-based international order.  World
public opinion points out that the claims make no sense. For example,
as concerns Israel, international conventions and international law
make clear that the occupier cannot claim self-defense against the
occupied. This is recognized in world public opinion. It includes the
right of those who are colonized to oppose the colonizers using
force.
When
world public opinion agrees with a moral standard that the
occupier cannot claim self-defence against the occupied, that is public
opinion agreeing with a standard established, a standard that also
opposes genocide. The U.S. and Israel, with a perverse twist, instead
insist they have the right to self-defence based on their so-called
rules-based international order. According to them, there are rules
which
are independent of public opinion. It is like saying that a ruler that
measures length, or a clock that gives a precise measure of time,
count for nothing. Despite what they say, the fact remains that the
measures of length, time or distance are not a matter of opinion. They
exist as a public standard, notwithstanding the fact that different
standards are used depending on the country, the traditions and so on
which give us hectares or acres or arpents or dunums, and so on. The
U.S. and Israel claim that a rule exists which is independent of public
opinion, and that this rule justifies self-defence against what they
decide is an "existential" threat, a future threat. 
 
Public
opinion stands with Palestine, as seen in the march for justice for
Palestine held in London as part of the Resist G7 day of action for
international justice, June 12, 2021.
Blinken
also says that no course of action can be determined by the
rule, because every course of action can be made out to agree with
the rule, which is what the U.S. does all the time. However they choose
to determine things, such as self-defense, if they do it their actions
are in agreement with the rule, but not if someone else does it. This
is commonly called a double standard. The answer given by
the U.S. to accusations that it is using double standards is that if
everything can be made out to agree with the rule, it can also be
made out to conflict with it. The valid conclusion from this is that
there is no such thing as agreement with the rule or existence of the
rule itself because it is whatever those in a position of power to
judge
say it is. This is widely evident in U.S. actions toward Palestine, as
well as in the police killings across the U.S. and decisions not to
charge the members of a police force and police agencies involved
and so on. So too in the case of countries whose arguments and
policies are based on the same imperialist logic. The world established the
standard that the occupier, in this case Israel,
cannot claim self-defence against those occupied. The perversion by
the U.S., as the ruler using U.S. rules, declares that the occupier can
claim self-defence. The U.S. has been doing this since World War II.
Its
creation of the CIA, military bureaucracies, etc. are all part of their
so-called rules-based international order. What
is perverse in all this goes back to the period of 1945 and the
Cold War. The conception given among the circles that were
establishing this so-called rules-based international order and working
out the development of the military-industrial complex, purposely
did not mention anything about the defeat of fascism and its
significance and effect on world developments. Their conception is
ahistorical. The U.S. rulers were sorting out that the militarization
of
the economy involves a complex, which is a special feature of life
said to reach into every cell of life. President Eisenhower put it this
way in 1961, after the military-industrial complex was
established: "Now this conjunction of an immense military
establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American
experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual
-- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal
government. We recognize the imperative need for this
development." The
ruling circles decided a vast establishment was needed for further
development of nuclear weapons, for becoming a superpower. The
U.S. said the military-industrial complex was brought into being
because of challenges from the USSR. Their so-called rules-based
order stems from the complexity of this military-industrial complex
involving the merger of the military and what becomes a huge
military bureaucracy, with industry, which was itself merged with the
international institutions of finance capital coming out of World War
II, like
the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Referring to the
merger for the development of finance capital, which itself is a
merger of industrial and banking capital, one economist quipped that
the IMF and World Bank had a basement office in the Pentagon. All
of this is what made it a complex. It is this complex that has to be
controlled in terms of influence in what Eisenhower termed the
councils of power. Eisenhower
is often quoted saying he opposed the military-industrial
complex. He is in fact speaking to how it must be controlled; how the
striving of the vying factions within it must be controlled. He also
puts it in the context of national security and disempowering the
people. He said: "In the councils of government, we must guard
against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the
disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must
never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or
democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an
alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of
the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our
peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper
together." This is the same meaning as conveyed when Biden says
"we the people" are the government. The conception forced down
peoples' throats is that there is a superior
opinion and a superior judgment that can be made by those who are
superior and their judgment must be accepted. This is commonly used
when state secrets are invoked, and claims made of espionage, or
targeted assassinations are carried out, all in the name of national
security.
This article was published in
Volume 51 Number 14 - June 13, 2021
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2021/Articles/MS51147.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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