"The militarisation of space ... raises new challenges. Space technologies provide great strength to space-faring nations, and the US in particular. America is designing ground-launched hypersonic and non-nuclear 'Prompt Global Strike' missiles that, guided by satellite, could hit almost any spot on Earth in less than an hour" ("Modern Warfare, Intelligence And Deterrence: The Technologies That Are Transforming Them", Ed., Benjamin Sutherland, Profile Books/The Economist, 2011, p82).

"Space is becoming a less stable environment, even as it holds the promise of becoming a new source of human prosperity" ("The Militarisation Of Space And Its Transformation Into A Warfighting Domain", 17/7/20)

"We can see a pathway between (Einstein as a boy) dreaming of riding on a light beam and our own dream, which we are planning to turn into a reality, of riding our own light beam to the stars. We are standing at the threshold of a new era. Human colonisation on other planets is no longer science fiction. It can be scientific fact" ("Brief Answers To The Big Questions, Stephen Hawking, John Murray Pub., 2018/20, p179).

"It's great for global security", said British Prime Minister (PM) Boris Johnson about the new Australia-United Kingdom-US (AUKUS) nuclear submarine deal for Australia" (1 News At Midday, 23/9/21).

"Pity our Australian friends suffering a Covid crisis and now finding themselves passengers on a $90 billion military train driven by a man (PM Scott Morrison) who loves shovelling coal with a delusional co-driver (Boris Johnson) who thinks he is Winston Churchill. How lucky that Kiwis can stand on the platform and wave goodbye. Unfortunately, political leaders devoted to 1950s' policies in the face of climate change and nuclear geopolitical realities are a terrible danger to us all" (letter to the Press Editor, Warren Thomson, 18/9/21).

"The US's Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, said in August 2001 that his country expected Australian troops to die alongside American servicemen in any future conflict with China over Taiwan" ("The New Nuclear Danger: George W Bush's Military-Industrial Complex", Scribe, 2002, in chapter 10, "The Australian Connection", p188).

"On January 6 (2021), Confederate flags and Nazi symbols were on display (by far-Right insurrectionists), in homage to the man who had been stoking white grievance for four years, in the halls of our Congress, in an effort to impede the peaceful transfer of power ... to advance their white supremacist, anti-democratic agenda" ("The Reckoning: America's Trauma And Finding A Way To Heal", Mary L Trump, Allen & Unwin, 2021, p134).

Perhaps the most troubling revelations for the US (from the Pandora Papers fall-out] centre onits expanding complicity in the offshore economy (of tax havens and trusts). South Dakota, Nevada, and other states have adopted financial secrecy laws that rival those of offshore jurisdictions. Records show leaders of foreign governments, their relatives and companies moving their private fortunes into US-based trusts" ("Lid Lifted On Pandora's Box", Press, 5/10/21).

"Nearly five million people are again on the brink of famine, four million are displaced, nearly two-thirds of the population relies on humanitarian assistance, and another wave of Covid-19 has arrived" ("Yemen: Millions of Displaced Persons and Migrants", 22/9/21).

"Even ignoring what may occur in Pakistan or elsewhere, there is nothing in the present constellation of forces and factors within Afghanistan to warrant confidence that America is not facing another failure there, much bigger this time because, as it did in Vietnam, it staked its credibility" ("Another Century Of War", Gabriel Kolko, The New Press, 2002, p76).

The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that: "a humanitarian catastrophe looms" in Afghanistan, and urged donor governments to take immediate action to ensure necessary aid for Afghans facing "severe hunger and collapsing health services" (Afghanistan: Humanitarian Crisis Needs Urgent Response, 3/9/21).

Evolutionary Overshoot Fantasies

In July 2021 several multi-billionaires indulged their evolutionary overshoot fantasies by blasting off from planet Earth in separate launches to go into space for a few minutes. Britain's Richard Branson was the first on a Virgin Galactica flight, followed a short time later by America's Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, boosted up by his Blue Origin company. Bezos is the owner of Amazon, the Washington Post newspaper, etc. He is also closely linked in certain respects with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Correspondingly, the corporate media, including here in Aotearoa/NZ - as especially exemplified by TV1 and TV3 - went into an overdrive of fawning celebration of this capitalist excess, certainly for the most part in their coverage of these events. Commendably, at one point, TV1 did have the decency to draw attention to Bezos's egregious exploitation of his Amazon workers. But this pretty well amounted to a hiccup in proceedings, given the continuing hype. Overall, the mainstream media's endorsement of such exuberant "sci-fi" entrepreneurialism exactly reflects this media's own neoliberal values and attitudes, and spaced-out sense of life on Earth.

Then in September 2021 we got a further media display of heavenly rapture, with Elon Musk's Space X boosting several citizens into space for another indulgence of the fantasies of travel to more planets to plunder and ruin. In October, 90-year-old William Shatner, the Captain Kirk of "Star Trek" fame, got a momentary flight in space courtesy of Bezos.

Meanwhile, the new American Space Force continues its preparations for the final planetary reckoning, cheered on by the likes of Rocket Lab and its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Peter Beck ("Rocket Lab Awarded Contract For Back-to-Back NRO Missions", 18/6/20 - a Rocket Lab press release). The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is the major US spy satellite agency. Ed.

In sum, this narcissistic, "uber-rich" exhibitionism of "boys and their toys" amounted to an outrageous display of power and wealth by three leading exemplars and exponents (and their associates) of the exploitative and environmental excesses of the Anglo-American axis. Their kind of globalist capitalism has long been screwing people and trashing the Earth and any prospect of a viable habitat for humankind. Ironically, and most fittingly, they were called out in mid-October by Britain's Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, who appealed for concern and resources to instead be directed on trying to fix all the mounting problems on planet Earth, particularly anthropogenic climate change.

In this article, I continue examining and exploring various aspects of a complex of closely inter-connected, deleterious global factors that together threaten our very existence: the ongoing capitalist obsession with profit and power-driven technological innovation; the brutal subjugation of the natural world; the imperialist exploitation of weaker peoples; the antics of the malicious mainstream media; the fantasies of endless economic growth; the mounting plunder of resources; growing geopolitical competition; increasing militarisation of the planet; etc. Over-arching all of these is the threat of nuclear war and final holocaust! Houston, we have some challenges here on Earth...

Battling For The Earth

Bill Hare, Deputy Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, well warned in 1988 in a Foreword to the book "Battle For The Earth" that: "The plight of Australia's environment mirrors the global experience today of widespread destruction of forest and wilderness, the dislocation and often violent dispossession of indigenous people, and the pollution and degradation of the great global commons that are the atmosphere, oceans, and waterways".

"Driven by the seemingly relentless pressure for economic growth, we push the natural systems on which we all depend to the brink of collapse and sometimes beyond. It is time that we reassessed just where we are taking our planet Earth - if only for the selfish reason that there go we as well" ("Battle For The Earth: Today's Key Environmental Issues", eds., Edward Goldsmith & Nicholas Hildyard, Child & Associates Pty Ltd., 1988, p7).

In "Battle For The Earth" there was a prophetic essay by James Lovelock titled "Man And Gaia" (ibid., pp51-64). Lovelock declaimed that: "To destroy such a chunk of the living ecosystem when we do not understand how it all works is like pulling apart the control system of a modern aircraft while in mid-flight" (ibid., p64). He posed the central question: "But how is Man affecting Gaia (the Earth-system)?" He pointed to the "most-discussed change" wrought by human industrial activities, i.e., the change "to carbon dioxide (CO2) levels... (which) are likely to double within a century" (ibid., p62). Lovelock then outlined the unfolding dangers that humankind faces due to rising CO2 levels and other greenhouse gas emissions.

In November 2021, we had COP26, signposted as our "last make or break" chance to save ourselves from otherwise inevitable disaster. Global coordinated momentum to transition to a more sustainable economic system has been badly flagging (for example, see: "Challenging the Military Carbon Bootprint"). We can only do our very best to help drive positive momentum forward.

The Great Samsara* Cycle Of Stardust
* the universal flow of energy, including life, death, and "rebirth". DS.

The development of language has proved crucial to human evolution. In our own times, the ironies of word play and interconnections can be basic in both the transmission and interpretation of our culture. There can be deeply contradictory aspects of modern life reflected in the use of the very same terms. In the rocketing trajectory of spacewards over-reach, it was noted in 1985 how: "Thor, the first US ballistic missile, gradually evolved into the long-tank Thor, which became the Thor Delta (Delta 1904), and then into the highly versatile series of vehicles, which have been the backbone of NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration's) middleweight launch capability since the late 1960s" ("The Encyclopedia Of US Spacecraft: Produced In Cooperation With NASA", Bill Yenne, Bison Books Ltd., 1985, p178).

These days down on Earth, the Delta outbreak of the Covid-19 virus is sorely testing controls here in Aotearoa/NZ. It is ravaging much of the rest of the world. The contrast in what the name "Delta" can mean is stark in terms of aspiring space rocketry versus human ecology, and the implications for the future. At the same time, too, these implications ironically contain parallel potential threats from two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - war and plague!

Humans are certainly testing the limits of their existence. "We inhabit a time when systems of machines - 'technics' as cultural and social critic Lewis Mumford called them - constitute a technosphere that overlays the natural ecosphere. This technosphere is malleable as never before. There are thousands of paths, and each has different social implications. This must be understood, for only some paths will be taken, while others will be called impractical, or said to have never existed at all".

"Technology, then, has everything to do with politics, and with deniability" [of environmental realities] ("Slow Reckoning: The Ecology Of A Divided Planet", Tom Athanasiou, Vintage, 1996/8, p244). Tom Athanasiou, an American "veteran of US ecology and technology movements" - writing in 1996 - goes on to discuss "Recycling: (as a) Public Relations Cover For The Garbage Society" (ibid.). He sees so much recycling as simply "greenwashing" PR, pertinently asking why do we create so much garbage in the first place (ibid., p246).

In a following section, while discussing the problem of nuclear power, Athanasiou observes that: "The easy conviviality between PR, tech fixes, and business as usual can be seen in Japan (a most technocratic society that prizes robots over living creatures!). New Earth 21, launched in 1990 by MITI (the Ministry of International Trade and Industry), offers itself a one-hundred-year plan that, according to Shinji Fukukawa, Executive Vice President of Kobe Steel, 'aims, over the next 100 years, at restoring the Earth's functions to its state prior to the Industrial Revolution" (ibid., p248).

Again, as Tom Athanasiou so aptly remarked at the time, "Japan is desperately in need of green PR cover". Yet, so obviously and ironically enough, "New Earth 21 (was) a corporate engineer's fantasy" (ibid., pp248/9). Athanasiou also noted that "New Earth 21 materialised during the run-up to the Earth Summit" [in 1992, at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil] (ibid.). Even greenwashing PR is recycled continuously within globalist capitalism!

"Star Wars" Scenarios And Anti-Ballistic Missile Defence (ABM)

It was during the Reagan Administration in the 1980s that the term "Star Wars" really came to light. In answer to the question: "What is the real meaning of 'Star Wars'?", Google has this to say: "Star Wars. A popular name, taken from the title of a film, for the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) of President Ronald Reagan. 'Star Wars' involves the development by the US of a defence in outer space against intercontinental ballistic missiles", or IBMs".

SDI was a critical dimension of the immensely dangerous Reaganite "First Strike" policy on the use of nuclear weapons ("With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush & Nuclear War", Robert Scheer, Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., 1982; "First Strike!: The Pentagon's Strategy For Nuclear War", South End Press, 1983). American anti-ballistic missile defence (ABM), or ballistic missile defence (BMD), has since developed in a range of forms integral to its underlying SDI/"First Strike"/war-fighting strategy.

"The aim is to hit large ballistic missiles, including ICBMs, just after they are launched - in the boost phase" ("Modern Warfare, Intelligence And Deterrence", op. cit., p17). In order to effect this, there has been an ambitious laser project labelled "the Airborne Laser (ABL), being developed by the American Missile Defence Agency and Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman" (ibid.).

For sure, Reaganites had a "gung-ho" attitude to fighting a nuclear war. For example, TK Jones, US Deputy Under Secretary of Defence for Strategic and Theatre Nuclear Forces, so infamously told his fellow citizens that if the big crunch came: "Dig a hole, cover it with a couple of doors, and then throw three feet of dirt on top... It's the dirt that does it... if there are enough shovels to go around, everybody's going to make it" ("With Enough Shovels", ibid.). Reaganites might have had stars in their eyes but they were only too ready and willing to make Americans grovel in the dirt, burying them alive or dead!

Star-Struck Missile Defence!

On the front cover of his book "War In Space", published in 1986 (Golden Press), military historian Nigel Flynn counterposed two quotes as follows: (a) "Star Wars is an idea whose time has come. No one can stop it now" - Lt. General Daniel O'Graham, High Frontier Incorporated; versus: (b) "Space Wars are not an alternative to war on Earth. In my view, they are a prelude to war on Earth" - Richard L Garwin, IBM Fellow, Thomas J Watson Research Centre.

Flynn wrote his book "War In Space" worried by "a growing conviction that much of the space race between the two superpowers was motivated by warlike, rather than peaceful aims" (back flap, ibid.). Esoteric "sci-fi"-type weapons were already in the wind - proposed weapons like "Excimer lasers, chemical lasers, and the X-ray laser", along with "particle beam weapons, kinetic energy weapons, and the super-computers needed to conduct and orchestrate the wars of the future" (ibid.)

Given such developments being pursued, as Nigel Flynn rightly predicted: "The defence of increasingly complex military assets in space will in itself stimulate the militarisation of space. When economic exploitation really gets under way, space enterprises, in the shape of commercial and scientific operations, will need military protection" (ibid., p96). "To wage war in space... Targeting, navigation, communications, command, control, and intelligence activities will have to be performed by automatons and robots" (ibid., p97). As a consequence, the potential problems go on proliferating - both in ways anticipated, and also in ways unanticipated, right up to the present and trending beyond!

Racing Into Space For The Final (?) Endless (?) Frontier

Over the years, the prime driver of the space race in all its manifestations - from the "giant leap" to the Moon to fostering satellite warfare - has been NASA. In multiple ways, it has very much been at the core of the military-industrial complex and plans for Doomsday. Writing back also in the 1980s, former rocket scientist, Robert C Aldridge, once an employee at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company - a subsidiary of the Lockheed Corporation located at the southern tip of San Francisco Bay - well warned of the dangers of "first strike" in damning detail and NASA's crucial contribution ("First Strike!"", op. cit., pp212/13). He pointed out the role of NASA's contribution to the Space Detection and Tracking System (SPADATS), including keeping tabs on "hostile satellites".

Such detection and tracking systems are an essential element of the US's nuclear first strike/war-fighting strategy (ibid.). During his rocket science career, Aldridge had been "a former design engineer for the Polaris and Trident missile systems", until he became disillusioned and very disturbed about the real intentions of his employers. Later in describing the "US Plans For War In Space", renowned international peace/anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott noted how: "During Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf in 1991, military space operations were used to produce what is called a 'multiplier' effect, which considerably enhanced communications, navigation, and targeting" ("The New Nuclear Danger", op. cit., p118).

In 1996, the decade-old unified US Space Command, whose motto was "Master of Space", published a pamphlet called "Vision For 2020", in which it overtly enunciated its goals of war in space" (ibid.). By the start of the 21st Century, there was talk of creating a new branch of the Pentagon - the US Space Force (ibid., pp121-3). This later took shape under the Trump Administration (Jan. 20, 2017- Jan. 20, 2021). This Force's motto is now "Semper Supra" - Always Above (or Always Superior).

America has the "world's most developed space monitoring system with a network of radars and telescopes" ("Modern Warfare", op. cit., p135). But the problems mount with new technologies and the spread of "counterspace operations", involving the disabling or destruction of enemy satellites in any future conflict (ibid., p134). And there is always the increasing scope, scale, and complexity of competing potential enemy activities . . .

Earthbound Entrepreneurialism Goes Into Exuberant Over-Drive!

Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and their like-minded mates are seeking to reach out into space for more profitable enterprise as we humans, now so overwhelmingly and destructively the Earth's dominant species, exceed our planet's boundaries. They are brazenly piggy-backing on State-funded space race exploration and war machine programmes and projects. And, naturally, they are still being subsidised in a host of ways.

It has taken only about a mere 23,000 years for humans to emerge from caves at the start of the Bronze Age to the point where some greedy narcissistic "entrepreneurs" are trying to start up a tourist industry in space, flaunting the most extravagant conspicuous consumption and inequities of all. And it has all just happened in a blink of an eye, even in biological time...

For a pro-American capitalist perspective on the space race, here is a summary statement - ironically enough - from the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Japan: "Military use of space began with the Sputnik crisis in October 1957, which initiated the space race between the US and the Soviet Union. More recently, a growing number of countries are pursuing military uses of space" ("The Militarisation Of Space"... op. cit.). The author of the particular article just cited is Jun Nagashima, Senior Analyst, Sumitomo Corporation, Global Research. Sumitomo is one of the many giant trading, raw resource, mining, and manufacturing transnational corporations (TNCs) acting as cheer-leaders and a support base for the new space industry.

Nagashima actually declaims that: "Space has enormous potential for not only the development of science and technology but also for economic growth. Globalised society is increasingly dependent on the space system, and Japan is participating in the US-led Artemis Programme, which aims to explore lunar space" (ibid.). This programme is coordinated by NASA in collaboration with international and commercial partners. Artemis is aimed at establishing a so-called "sustainable" base on the Moon to boost the further exploration of Mars.

Soaring Into Oblivion Like Icarus!?

Evolutionary overshoot beyond the boundaries of Earth is now fully expressed and exemplified by the American-led space industry in multitudinous fashion. As the very junior member of the "Five Eyes" club in the Anglo-American axis, NZ has joined in with gay abandon, casting caution to the wind! (The Detail: "Our Soaring Space Industry", Newsroom, 21/6/21). The NZ Space Agency was established in the Ministry of Business, Innovation, & Employment (MBIE) in 2016 to deliberately cheer on human planetary overshoot into outer space!

With NZ's Peter Beck and Rocket Lab blazing the way as charted by Lockheed Martin & co, the mainstream media have done their very best for the most part to promote and celebrate this new industry. Yet, thanks to a growing peace activist/anti-nuclear movement, this continuing impetus for the space industry has, of late, come in for a bit of media criticism regarding its military aspects and contracts ("Space Jam: Rocket Lab Isn't The Only Player In NZ's Fast-Moving $1.7 Billion Space Industry. But There Are Misgivings About Military Payloads", Amanda Cropp, Sunday Star-Times [SST], 17/10/21).

Even enthusiastic corporate space exponents like Jun Nagashima of Sumitomo can openly worry about a very dark downside. There is a mounting "militarisation of space and its transformation into a war-fighting domain" (The Militarisation Of Space"..., op. cit.). Moreover, a lot of the technology being pushed on the surface for peaceful purposes can have the dual function of applications for warfare. Compounding contradictions and potential problems are deepening fast and wide.

On the one hand, Nagashima sees that: "Non-military competition in acquiring growth resources in space has already begun through the development and use of relevant technologies [e.g., grabbing minerals from asteroids and the Moon]" (ibid.). Yippee!? Yet, if new technologies can purportedly reduce "the vulnerability of space systems", at the same time a whole plethora of threats: space debris, anti-satellite weapons (ASATs), cyber-attacks, laser obstruction, and growing congestion will all inevitably increase the "vulnerability of (the very same!) space systems" (ibid.).

"Star Wars" Goes Ballistic!

Sumitomo's Jun Nagashima says that the US labels China and Russia as the biggest country rivals to its dominance of space. But, despite acknowledging the increasing instability of space, Nagashima tries to juggle his utopian and dystopian visions at once in dualistic fashion (ibid.). He happily embraces and promotes the space war race and the dangerous proliferation of weaponry!

Nagashima asserts that: "US officials recognise the difficulty in tracking or dealing with Chinese or Russian hypersonic missiles, weapons that could be mounted with nuclear warheads" (ibid.). So, attention is now "focused on the development of a space-based sensor system like Proliferated Low Earth Orbital (PLEO) constellations" (ibid.). This is where some of the work that Rocket Lab does for the Pentagon fits into the US nuclear war-fighting/first strike strategy and the US Space Force programme per militaristic investors Lockheed Martin & co. ("Rocket Lab"..., op. cit.).

In furtherance of its space warfare programme, Jun Nagashima observes that Pentagon officials are also looking at "a space-based ballistic interception system and a directed energy weapon for intercepting weapons. There is a new focus on addressing threats that are difficult to detect and track on the ground, such as weapons that fly at hypersonic speeds, by monitoring and warning systems in space" (The Militarisation Of Space, op. cit.).

Sumitomo's vision for Japan going forward in space is to become "an independent space power through cooperation with allies, strengthening its industrial and scientific technological infrastructure, and expanding the scope of its space utilisation" (ibid.). Since 2003, Japan has been developing an ABM/BMD system "with Aegis ships and Patriot missiles" (ibid.).

A Paper Trail Of Planetary Pillage

Meanwhile, in graphic contrast to "uber-rich" self-celebration and media promotion of globalist excess a la space jaunts, the release of the "Pandora Papers" by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has, in breath-taking style, uncovered the extent and depth of the depravity of capitalist greed at work across the Earth. This "massive trove of private financial records shared (ironically enough!) with the Washington Post exposes vast reaches of the secretive offshore system used to hide billions of dollars from tax authorities, creditors, criminal investigators and - in 14 cases involving current country leaders - citizens around the world" ("Lid Lifted...", op. cit.).

As highlighted earlier above, a major theme of our times comprises the forces propelling the new space industry as Anglo-American globalist capitalism - epitomised by some avaricious, preening multi-billionaires - tries to project its surplus value and war-mongering reach beyond Earth's planetary limits. Meantime, a vast amount of capital's surplus value is spirited away in trusts and tax havens across our planet, driving even greater socio-economic inequities. To be sure, human survival is becoming more precarious, and thus the need to act pre-emptively more urgent than ever!

"Surplus value" has been a key concept in the Marxist tradition and its analytical criticism of the capitalist system. In terms of the burgeoning space industry, it most certainly has heaps of explanatory power. A mere relative handful of multi-billionaires obscenely enough own half of the world's wealth, and a number of them are shooting an increasing amount of it up into the waste of space, while human deprivation and suffering mount below.

"Surplus value" can be defined as "the specific way exploitation takes place under capitalism"... (a way) in which the surplus takes the form of profit, and exploitation results from the working class producing a net product which can be sold for more than they receive as wages. Thus, profit and wages are the specific forms that surplus and necessary labour take when employed by capital" ("A Dictionary Of Marxist Thought", 2nd ed., Tom Bottomore, et al, Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1983/1991, pp528/9).

The actual process of production is crucial to understanding the explanation of this type of exploitation. It is not just a question of (individually negotiated) unfair exchange in the sense of workers being forced "to sell their labour below its value", but how within the process of production "the position of exploiter and exploited (are) class positions defined by access to the means of production..." (ibid., 529). Coercion and class control are built into the very structure and functioning of the capitalist system.

"Crudely put, the theory of surplus value explains that employers take the wealth created by the employees and 'skim off the top'" ("Amazon Is The Best Argument Against Capitalism", Pacific Standard, 7/2/19). Amazon is now "the most valuable company in the US, valued at $US797 billion", with Jeff Bezos himself posturing unashamedly as "the richest person in the world, his net worth valued at $US112 billion" - so gross! (ibid.).

To get his hugely extortionate surplus value, Bezos has happily screwed his workers at subsistence level wages, or even lower, all supplemented and facilitated by Government-provided "food stamps", taxpayer subsidies, and corporate tax breaks. He has been riding the wave of unleashed neoliberal globalist consumerism, and, of course, does not allow his workers to unionise at Amazon.

Bezos is certainly a most outstanding examplar of the greedy, grasping, narcissistic entrepreneur, the kind that has been lauded in the West's deeply corrupted culture, including in Aotearoa/NZ where he is welcomed in making more information technology (IT) investments, although detail is lacking regarding the use of energy, water, and various other important issues ("What We Don't Know About Amazon's NZ Plans", RNZ, 30/9/21).

Mind-Blowing "Marxist" Confession!

Ironies could not be greater in the case of the "Big Shot" founder-chairman of Amazon and founder-biggest investor of the aerospace/space flight Blue Origin company. You see, Bezos brazenly proclaimed on return to Earth from his outer space jaunt that: "I also want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer... because you guys paid for all of this" [my emphasis] ("Jeff Bezos, Space Marxist?", New Republic: 21/7/221).

One American publication plays up the startling admission of capitalist contradictions at work: "This unexpected endorsement of Karl Marx's theory of surplus value is a shot in the arm to Marxian economics, which has had a tough time of it ever since the collapse of communism in the late 1980s" (ibid.). Indeed, whatever the political forms taken by the Marxist movement, the theory still stands in so much of its analysis and explanation of the problems and issues at the heart of capitalism.

Aside from certain deficiencies exposed over time in general Marxist theory - most obviously, the idea of an inevitable progression to an equitable, participatory, materialist utopia - a lot of its analytical approach remains highly relevant, indeed more relevant than ever. Its conceptual apparatus provides a set of intellectual tools for laying bare capitalist structure and functioning in multiple dimensions.

In a world of deepening socio-economic inequities, global capitalism represents ultimately a very real danger to us all. One way or another on planet Earth, this economic system is certainly programmed for self-destruction unless humans can come to their senses in time! But the complexities involved can yet constitute baffling barriers to united action. We need to overcome these as much as possible in developing and building more effective programmes to bring about improved social justice and sustainable development outcomes.

With the participation of China and Russia, along with a host of lesser countries, capitalism in general has certainly grown more complicated and interconnected in a myriad of ways. There is a multi-layered pattern of exploitation concentrating capitalist accumulation in an ascending hierarchy of wealth and power. Jeff Bezos openly exults about the way he got rich. Other crucial methods of such wealth accumulation comprise tax-dodging, political influence, corruption, etc., and no doubt Bezos & co. have grabbed any loopholes and opportunities according to their respective lights and inclinations.

Pandora's Box Spills Open!

As already signalled, the recent release of what are called the "Pandora Papers" has disclosed, among so many other things, how tax havens and trusts constitute a global inter-woven web of capitalist accumulation and compounding inequities around the planet ("Lid Lifted...", op.cit). "The wealth and offshore dealings of world leaders, politicians, and royalty has been exposed in the leak of financial documents", with plenty of evidence to indicate both the greed of Anglo-American/Western billionaires, and the officially blessed cultivation and corruption of Western foreign policy assets living overseas (ibid.).

A host of riveting revelations included the fact that: "The files provide substantial new evidence" that states in the US like Nevada and "South Dakota now rival notoriously opaque jurisdictions in Europe and the Caribbean in financial secrecy. Tens of millions of dollars from outside the US are sheltered by trust companies in Sioux Falls (South Dakota’s largest city), some of it tied to people and companies accused of human rights abuses and other wrongdoing" (ibid.).

Among the ironies here, is the sad fact that South Dakota has long been a battleground for Native American rights. Past and present can connect and merge in the same prevailing predatory pattern of humans abusing and exploiting other humans. Various other findings from "Pandora's Box" show the pervasive and systematic complicity of the Anglo-American axis in similar damning detail. For instance, the package discloses "new details about foreign donors contributing millions to British PM Boris Johnson's Conservative Party" (ibid.). Former British PM and notorious war criminal Tony Blair was exposed in a shonky property deal.

In another case with deep foreign policy implications, "King Abdullah of Jordan, a long-standing US ally", is shown to have "used a constellation of shell companies to conceal purchases of luxury properties in California, London, and the Georgetown neighbourhood of Washington, DC" (ibid.). Again, there are indeed a considerable number of other pro-Western and corporate "free market" political leaders exposed, most conspicuously those below.

The President of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic; President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya; President Sebastian Pinera of Chile; President Luis Abinader of the Dominican Republic; Pakistani PM Imran Khan's government; "figures in Saudi Arabia's royal family"; both the current and former Panamanian Presidents; Ecuador's President; along with assorted others of this ilk (ibid.).

Big Money Gaming

Among the US's wealthiest citizens and the world's richest men, multi-billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet pay such low taxes that they might lack "less incentive to seek offshore havens. But their absence from the (Pandora) files also may mean" such uber-rich simply use different sets of companies and "offshore jurisdictions" to those revealed in the latest disclosure (ibid.).

One particular firm stood out as very prominent in the Pandora trove for facilitating tax havens and trusts - "the Aleman, Cordero, Galindo & Lee firm, known as 'Alcogal'" (ibid.). The Pandora Papers follow on from the earlier release, in April 2016, of a similar cache of documents called the "Panama Papers". ICIJ members, including Aotearoa/NZ's own Nicky Hager, were hard on the case. NZ had actually become known as "a very nice front for criminals"!

A massive trove of documents leaked from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca showed how this firm enabled wealthy Latin Americans to use "secretive tax-free" NZ shelf companies and trusts to channel funds around the world ("Panama Papers Report Alleges NZ Prime Place For Rich To Hide Money", 8/5/16). Given US imperialism's long-standing promotion of a "comprador" ruling capitalist class in so many Latin American countries, this style of globalist accumulation and its corresponding pattern of protection surely comes as no surprise when put in geopolitical context. But, of course, we need documented evidence as absolute proof!

In light of the Panama Paper disclosures: "Tax consultant Nick Beresford estimated foreign trusts (in NZ) held tens of billions of dollars in offshore assets, with all earnings tax-free in NZ/Aotearoa. And the Government had chosen to know nothing about any of it" ("John Key Keeps Lid On Hidden Billions", Stuff, 5/10/16).

"(PM) Key's initial reaction had been that there was no need to change the trust laws..." (ibid.). Nothing to really see here, eh, so let's move on!? There was even some suspicion that Key himself had a vested interest in this particular connection. His own personal lawyer Ken Whitney had fronted for the Antipodes Trust Group. Whitney had been lobbying the then Government Minister Todd McLay on behalf of this business outfit against a Treasury proposal to tighten up the foreign trust legislation. How outrageous can it get in "banana republic" NZ?!

John Key denied that he had any conflict of interest. But the Government position on foreign trusts soon became "excruciating" as Nicky Hager and others dug deeper, revealing a series of embarrassing issues for both the Government of the day and our country's international reputation. PM Key was obliged to take action. A new law was enacted, substantially improving conditions for Governmental scrutiny although there remain clear loopholes (ibid.).

Inter-Woven Layers Of Exploitation And Embedded Trauma

"Race" and "class" as inter-related concepts have had a thorny dynamic in both the more strictly Marxist, and also general Leftist, lines of thought over the centuries. For the sake of simplicity in this article, we can contrast the class position of the working-class of 19th Century Europe with the kind of relations that were engendered under Western imperialism and colonialism in the diverse lands of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These countries came under the rubric of the "Third World".

"In such units there was no simple division of the population into a single bourgeoisie and a single proletariat, but rather the development of multifarious and different relationships to the economic and political order by all manner of ethnic and racial groups seeing themselves as having distinct and divided interests". ("A Dictionary Of Marxist Thought", op. cit., p456). It has been pointed out that because of the very diverse interests involved and at stake in the history of Western imperialism: "The class analysis of colonial societies is infinitely complex" (ibid., p457).

But in certain cases, the demarcated differences may yet seem stark indeed to a large extent in terms of both self-identity and structurally-prescribed identity, whatever the attempts by the ruling group to divide and rule the peoples whom they are oppressing. White (former) Rhodesia and South Africa can be taken as the classic examples, as can some other colonised African lands, e.g., the former Portuguese-controlled territories of Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique; and Algeria under the French.

On the other hand, ethnic differences (including tribal identities) cultivated and manipulated by white settlers have continued to prove tragically divisive in these lands post-independence, as also in so many others. "Since the different groups involved are usually recruited and sometimes imported from different racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds the struggle between them is often seen as a race or ethnic struggle" (ibid.).

The Grim Legacies Of Racist Oppression

In our own times, the positive unravelling of the dynamic interaction between class and race is fraught with challenges of one sort or another. The international Black Lives Matter surely brought this home to us in Aotearoa/NZ too! This movement, of course, originated in the US. One of former President Donald Trump's most scathing critics has been his niece Mary Trump, taking him to task on his grossly racist, sexist, and generally sociopathic attitudes and values. For certain, she sees him as "an instinctive fascist who is limited by his inability to see beyond himself" ("The Reckoning", op. cit., p138).

In her latest book on the dangers of Trumpism and what underlies it in the land of her birth, Mary Trump traces what she considers a social "disease that has existed within the body politic since America's inception - from the original sin of slavery through its population's unceasing, organised commitment to inequality" (from the back cover blurb, ibid.). This is the white over black syndrome of racial oppression.

Qualified in Advanced Psychological Studies, Mary Trump "has taught graduate courses in trauma, psychopathology, and developmental psychology" (ibid.). In her analysis of the political, cultural, and socio-economic condition in the US, she interprets American race relations as a form of social trauma that the population has to face squarely, and tackle accordingly if there is ever to be any real improvement.

Mary Trump lays it on the line for her fellow Americans thus: "If we want to create a society in which there really is equal justice for all, we've got to level the playing-field and dismantle every part of the system that grants white Americans unearned privilege at the cost of repressing others. Reparations are a way to do that" (ibid., p174). Without such positive remedial action, the US will never be a democracy, let alone a cooperatively unified society.

Zapped From The Heavens!?

But America's ruling class, whether Republican or Democrat, whatever their differences, share a broad self-serving consensus. This united mindset mandates a supposed American "exceptionalism" with regard to the rest of humankind. It grants a God-given right to project political, cultural, economic, and military power around the globe at will, whenever and wherever they want to do so, beaming out a laser beam from the light on the hill blessed by the Plymouth Pilgrim founding-fathers. "The invoking of God has actually been done by all American Presidents" ("Terrorism And War", op. cit., p93).

On the back cover of a book authored in 1981 by a space expert closely connected to NASA, a boxed message proclaimed: "As you read this, preparations are under way for World War 3. Weapons are being devised, constructed and tested which make the nuclear horrors with which we are familiar as obsolete as the cross-bow, itself once considered to be the ultimate deterrent! The super-powers, locked in an arms race, which they are impotent to control, are producing laser guns and particle beam weapons, which are, in reality, the death rays of science fiction" ("The Shape Of Wars To Come: The Hidden Facts Behind The Arms Race In Space", David Baker, PSL, 1981).

But while Baker's book seems on the surface then to be in tune with that of Nigel Flynn ("War In Space", op. cit.), at least on one level recognising super-power interactive competition in a space race spiralling out of control, it is actually a war-mongering tract. For instance, Baker's book has a "Foreword by General George Keegan, Chief, US Air Force Intelligence (Retd)", in which Keegan paints the Soviet Union in Reaganite terms as the "evil empire", viciously threatening the peaceful, well-meaning US (ibid., pp6/7).

In the best tradition of self-serving, hypocritical American rhetoric resonantly dripping with a religious style of language of which the founding Puritan Pilgrim Fathers would have surely been proud, Major-General Keegan pits the hopes of "free world survival" against the godless "Forces of Darkness" (ibid., p6). These forces are wickedly trying to capture "and dominate the 'high ground' of near space" (ibid.). My gosh, surely, we can thank our lucky stars these days to have US-owned Rocket Lab here to help protect us - yeah, right!

Darkness Versus Light - May The Force Be With You!?

For Keegan, "the vision of utopian peace has blinded America's diplomats, scientists, and political leaders" (ibid.). He then raps on about how "the tragic events of the 1930s are to unfold upon us once again", in a comparison of the rise of Nazi Germany with the predicted capability of the Soviets to carry out a nuclear first strike on the US, using its newly deployed ray guns "to destroy all of America's satellites", missile force, etc. (ibid.). So, war-monger George Keegan naturally appealed for a huge technological programme to counter and deter the Soviets, and David Baker's study echoes this imperial and militarist approach.

The calculated and cynical scare-mongering about the risk of the near deployment of Soviet high energy beam weapons proved to be just so much more Pentagon bullshit, just another of the many documented instances of the failure of American so-called "intelligence". It was a transparent propaganda ploy like the later alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

From wars like Korea and Vietnam through 9/11 to the debacle of defeat in Afghanistan in 2021, American "intelligence" has repeatedly turned out be anything but! ("Terrorism And War", op. cit., e.g., pp74-77). As Howard Zinn stresses again and again, the malicious mainstream media have so often peddled "fake news" and lies, and covered up the truth with silence, or very biased, selective reporting.

During the late 2001-early 2002 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan: "The concealment of what (the US was) doing to the population in Afghanistan (was) essential", both for the indoctrination of its own people, and for the promotion of its international image (ibid., p84). State terrorism inflicted in the name of eliminating "terrorism" had to be hidden from the American public and the rest of the world! As Zinn rightly emphasised, there was nothing "measured or limited about cluster bombs, 15,000-pound Daisy Cutters, and carpet-bombing", as even the "liberal press", let alone the Rightwing mainstream media, tried to portray during the US onslaught (ibid., pp44/5).

War-Mongering, "Collateral Damage", And General Destruction

Zinn continues on the question of civilian deaths: "we also have to ask another question: 'Is it really an accident when civilians die under our bombs?' Even if you believe the Pentagon's claim that its intention is not to kill civilians, if civilians in fact become victims again and again, and it's predictable that they will, can that be called an accident?" "If the deaths of civilians are inevitable in bombing, as (Defence Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged, it is not an accident. The people prosecuting this war are committing murder. They are engaging in terrorism" [my emphasis] (ibid., p88).

Explanations and exposes of US State terrorism are spread throughout "Terrorism And War". For example, Zinn expounded on the following facts: "During the Vietnam War, far more civilians died than military personnel. The same was true in the Korean War. Most Americans have no idea what we did in Korea, but Korea was really a preview of Vietnam, particularly in the use of napalm and the bombing of villages, which contributed to more than two million people dying, most of them civilians" (ibid., pp78/9).

In Zinn's words: "War is now largely a war against people who are not combatants. And for that reason alone, war cannot be accepted in any judgment of what is to be done to resolve problems in international relations" (ibid., p79). But the "War on Terror" went on to perpetrate civilian slaughter all over the globe while war propaganda has even stepped up in its evil virulence. The latest militarist scare-mongering is centred around propaganda about how China's military is supposedly catching up fast with that of the US. At the same time, a gaping contradiction swirls about the claim being made by some American analysts that China's rise is now peaking with a range of limiting factors starting to bite!

Arms Race To Armageddon!?

Meantime, we continually hear about the very scary facts regarding confrontation with China's potential enemies as they gang up together in nuclear-capable style. For instance, India, which has been roped into a US-led alliance and primed with nuclear weapons, "has successfully tested a nuclear-capable ballistic missile in a show of strength to China" ("Nuclear-Capable Missile Tested In Show Of Strength", Press, 30/10/21). The long-range missile test "follows heavy Chinese military build-up along the 3,200km Line of Actual Control that separates the two countries" (ibid.).

In our own region, AUKUS has reared its ugly head. Australia has just embraced this new nuclear submarine pact with Britain and America, eliciting an angry and menacing retort from China (e.g., "Nuke Sub Deal Could Make Australia 'Potential Nuclear War Target", 16/9/21). Apparently, and most disturbingly, the NZ government might be having second thoughts about its rejection of AUKUS.

A recent media report has highlighted as to just how unleashed technological innovation is relentlessly driving humankind at speed towards the final terrible reckoning ("NZ Could Join AUKUS To Boost Cyber-Technologies", 26/10/21). Instead of jumping on the Peace Train, the Government might yet decide to take us on the 1950s AUKUS coal train, updated with a nuclear-capable engine for Holocaust-engineered engagement!

Professor Howard Zinn has some incisive and prescient comments on the arms race. He aptly remarks that the "Star Wars" SDI/ABM/BMD programme is really a capitalist scam. "Missile defence is fundamentally a programme to make profits for the corporations that are going to get the billions of dollars in contracts to build the system" ("Terrorism And War", op. cit., 96). Echoing President Dwight Eisenhower's famous quote, Zinn summed up the ever evolving "Star Wars" programme as "an enormous theft from the American people" (ibid.).

"By scrapping the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Treaty with Russia, you are creating the possibility of a greater arms race. You are challenging other nations to develop weaponry that can bypass the national missile defence shield" (ibid.). This is indeed exactly what happened. Russia, in riposte, went on to develop a whole new suite of hypersonic weapons. The international peace/anti-nuclear movement has to lift its game to a whole new level. We have to mobilise far more people across the planet!

Capitalist Crap, Conflict, And Old Crock

Of course, "Star Wars" in actuality has proved to date an empty, broken crock. Overwhelmingly, it so far stands as damning testimony to "what scientists have been saying again and again: that it simply does not work. The tests that have been designed to prove that missile defence works have only proved that it doesn't work" (ibid.). With regard to capitalism, Howard Zinn is blunt. "Certainly, there is a connection between capitalism and war... As soon as you have societies driven by profit, you are in a situation of nations vying for exploitation of other peoples and other materials. The nations competing for that profit are going to engage in war with one another. You see how many wars are fought over colonies, raw materials, and cheap labour. That's what imperialism is" (ibid., p97).

As Zinn declares: "So, by being based on profit, capitalism certainly makes wars between nations, wars over economic resources, much more likely, indeed, inevitable" (ibid.). Moreover: "Under capitalism, corporations that produce weapons make huge profits from these weapons of war and therefore are happy both to prepare for war and to engage in war" (ibid., pp97/8). In addition, using up the products of war ensures more government contracts for further production, and so on! Disaster capitalism in action!

Similarly, fellow historian Professor Gabriel Kolko, also reflecting on the ramifications of the 2001 war on Afghanistan, expounds on how: "The Korean War also intensified the US's dependence on imports of raw materials, primarily from the Third World. All its leaders were conscious of the importance of these imports, an awareness that constantly influenced foreign policy decisions" ("Another Century Of War?", op. cit., pp95/96).

"Only 5% of its total consumption of metals, excluding gold and iron, was imported in the 1920s, but 38% was imported from 1940-49, and 48% in the following decade. America's growth was linked to access to absolutely essential imports, the Western Hemisphere being its single largest supplier of vital metals, but the Middle East was critical for petroleum" (ibid., p96).

Kolko emphasised that resource dependence contributed heavily to the US's increasing involvement in geopolitical conflicts. It played a critical role in all sorts of entanglements and commitments, and fostered both overt conventional and covert foreign policy ventures, including the routine use of violence and open warfare. "To a critical extent, successive Washington Administrations made State-sponsored terrorism possible" (ibid., p95).

Vying For The ABM Vistas Ahead

Correspondingly over time, the US sought greater control over events on Earth from the realms of space. In answer to a question posed on Google - "Does the US have space-based weapons?" - the answer reads: "Right now, the US only acknowledges one space weapon - a ground-based communications jammer to interfere with signals sent from satellites".

Among all the misleading hype and propaganda directed at the American public and the wider international audience, it is the officially prescribed doctrine that: "For nearly two decades, US BMD policy has sought to protect the homeland against limited long-range missile strikes from states such as Iran and North Korea but not major nuclear powers like Russia and China, as that mission would pose significant technical, financial, and geopolitical challenges" ("Current US Missile Defense Programs At A Glance", Arms Control Association).

The Website just quoted is a most important source of information on the range of various missile defence proposals and projects with which the US is involved. America is obviously constantly seeking more effective ways of missile interception, including first strike capacity and "capabilities to destroy a missile threat before it launches, and field a space-sensor layer to provide birth-to-death tracking of ballistic missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles" (ibid.).

For instance, research continues "on how to develop laser beams that could destroy missiles in their boost phase" (ibid.). The camouflage of "Pentagonese" jargon also continues. Decades back, first strike strategy was screened by the far more benign-sounding term "counterforce" (see Robert Aldridge's excoriating expose in "The Counterforce Syndrome: A Guide To US Nuclear Weapons And Strategic Doctrine", Transnational Institute, TNI Pamphlet Series No. 7, 1978).

"Counterforce" is matched these days by the rather mysterious and puzzling use of the phrase "left of launch", which means in fact first strike strategy. It is pictured as "a proposed strategy that would be designed to counter threats before the missile is launched" (ibid.; see also: "Left Of Launch", Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, 16/3/15).

While "Left of Launch" is supposed to be a non-kinetic system, it is still worryingly visible to the more aware as "an offensive first strike strategy" ("Left Of Launch", ibid.). The project "is likely to encourage rather than deter nuclear use" ("Perspectives On Nuclear Deterrence In The 21st Century"). The Pentagon PR boffins always try and spin their best in chameleon fashion to help fast-track Doomsday! And, so, it goes...

Like A Bolt From The Blue!?

It is indeed such a supreme irony that the dream of the Pentagon's "death-cult" boffins has long been, as we quoted earlier from Nigel Flynn's 1986 tome "War In Space" (op. cit.), a space-based laser-type weapon that could instantly zap any designated target anywhere on Earth in the best sci-fi fashion a la "Star Wars". This is a step far higher up from the Airborne Laser (ABL) discussed earlier.

To encapsulate an overview: In 2002, Helen Caldicott reported that the Space-Based Laser (SBL): "A Reagan concept, conceived in 1977... (had) been resurrected to become the Pentagon's first space-based weapon for use in both the ballistic missile-defence and theatre missile-defence programmes, both overt violations of [the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, from which the Americans outrageously withdrew in December 2001" ("The New Nuclear Danger", op. cit., p95).

The US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty was done to enable it to develop its "National Missile Defence System", thus openly and brazenly subverting the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD). The balance of nuclear deterrence has depended on MAD. Corporate beneficiaries were Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and TRW (ibid.). In reaction, the understandably very disturbed Russians have developed in turn - as indicated above - a new suite of hypersonic weaponry to evade any American ABM/BMD. In the irony of ironies, MAD is being undermined by America's genuine military madness! And, so, it goes...

Most pertinently, Nigel Flynn quotes as the conclusion of his "Wars In Space" a statement by the famous science fiction writer, science exponent, futurist, inventor, media celebrity, and space travel advocate, Sir Arthur C Clarke, from the latter's "prophetic essay entitled 'The Rocket And The Future Of Warfare'" (op. cit., p97). Clarke truly declared: "The only defence against weapons of the future is to prevent them ever being used. In other words, the problem is political and not military at all" (ibid.).

Spaced Out Futurist Flights Of Fancy

In 2021, for perhaps the majority of humankind, the burgeoning space industry represents human destiny in heavenly terms as construed by the fortuitous munificence of seemingly god-like gifts. It seems for so many that "ex machina" our fate is written in the stars - astrology seems to be merging with the latest version of technocratic science! Such sentiment can seem quite bizarre when expressed in the most unlikely settings. For instance, imperialist ideologue and counter-insurgency (COIN) specialist, Australian Professor David Kilcullen, recounts in the course of a recent militaristic exposition how a number of captured Islamist fighters showed a very keen interest in space travel! ("The Dragon And The Snakes: How The Rest Learned To Fight The West", Scribe, 2020).

Mind you, even internationally acclaimed pundits can be badly confused in terms of practical politics and the realities of what is actually happening here on planet Earth. Cosmologist and astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, as might be expected, was an enthusiastic proponent of space travel ("Brief Answers To The Big Questions", op. cit.). However, his concept of civilisation can be primitive in the most Western capitalist fashion.

For example, this is his view of the impact of the voyages of Columbus: "Yet the discovery of the New World made a profound difference to the Old. Just think, we wouldn't have had the Big Mac or KFC. Spreading out into space will have an even bigger effect. It will completely change the future of the human race, and maybe determine whether we have any future at all" (ibid., p161/2).

Incidentally, in pondering strange ironies, here's Major-General George Keegan again in 1981: "America's utopian dream of 'Space for Peace' has been rudely shattered. Just as the Columbus explorations of the New World opened the greatest flowering of Western Civilisation, it also brought a level of depravity, death and destruction unprecedented in human history" ("The Shape Of Wars To Come", op. cit., p6). Similarly: "Space has become an extension of the Earth battlefield" (ibid.). From the rest of what he has to say, it is clear enough that Keegan does not understand the destructive momentum of the US-led conquest of new frontiers and his own pernicious role in this very process!

Professor Stephen Hawking has most pertinently posed the question as to "Will We Survive On Earth?", starting with a warning of imminent danger from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) about the nuclear threat ("Brief Answers To The Big Questions"... op. cit., in chapter 7, pp145-62). But he answered this question with hope and expectations for a utopian sci-fi future of rapidly increasing complexity "in both the biological and electronic spheres" whereby humans would thrive (ibid., pp161/2). To be sure, he embraced a kind of "2001: Space Odyssey" journey of ultimate human transformation via a pseudo-spiritualised-cum-technocratic evolutionary rebirth. It is all the old classic myth of metamorphosis in action again!

Crisis And Contradiction

Oddly enough, at the very same time, Hawking certainly recognises that there is a rapidly growing crisis on Earth. He says: "The Earth is becoming too small for us. Our physical resources are being drained at an alarming rate. Mankind has presented our planet with the disastrous gifts of climate change, pollution, rising temperatures, reduction of the polar ice caps, deforestation, and decimation of animal species. Our population, too, is increasing at an alarming rate. Faced with these figures, it is clear this near-exponential population growth cannot continue into the next millennium" (ibid., pp204/5). Hawking, incidentally, had three children himself.

So, the celebrated cosmologist Stephen Hawking worried about the worsening state of our planet and this was a key reason for wanting to embark on space travel. But, hang on a moment, what about the timeline, person-power, resources, etc., such enterprise would demand in the proposed programme to try and colonise other Goldilocks worlds to similarly plunder and destroy?!

Somehow, Hawking thinks that we can explore for new worlds while also endeavouring to fix the planet we have as much as possible. But again, in the final analysis, he believes we will inevitably spoil our nest to the extent of planet Earth becoming uninhabitable for humans. So, we have to seek new worlds. He thus testifies to our flawed nature as a species. Yet without tackling the nature of our species for the better what really are our long-term prospects?

Rocking And Rolling To The Stars

Hawking ponders the possibilities ahead. Let's look at his recorded musings and calculations on the big question of "boldly going beyond the solar system"... and reaching out to stars "accompanied by smaller, Earth-like planets" (ibid., pp172/3). He says that: "Some of these will lie in the Goldilocks zone, where the distance from the star is in the right range for liquid water to exist on their surface. There are around a thousand stars within 30 light years of Earth. If 1% of these have Earth-sized planets in the Goldilocks zone we have ten candidate new worlds" (ibid.).

But how long have we got then to find a new set of frontiers to conquer on a likely Goldilocks planet? Stephen Hawking estimates that "by using our imagination we can make inter-stellar travel a long-term aim - in the next 200 to 500 years" (ibid.). And yet in the meantime, we are rapidly destroying our habitat... Well, back to the future in that the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey" has been the subject of screeds of controversy over its interpretation.

It can be seen as a parable of ultimate human metamorphosis or a darkly apocalyptic prophecy of human self-destruction ("2001: A Space Odyssey", Wikipedia). Glaring contradictions are certainly integral to the rationale propounded by Hawking for space travel. Firmly grounded on Earth's soil, we can heartily join Prince William in dismissing the idea of planet B as ludicrous. Our fate will be decided here on the third rock from the Sun very soon, one way or another. The pull of other distant planets is a Shangri-la too far, far away indeed!

Marketing Space!

For some of us, the new public-private space industry so obviously represents the ultimate “boom and bust” of our predatory, invasive, and very conflictive species unless we can wake up in time from the globalist trance of conquering frontier after frontier. Earth's usurpation by its currently dominant species is so blatantly backfiring on this very same species, given Covid-19, anthropogenic climate change, environmental meltdown, gory geopolitics, etc. As well, this destruction is impacting on nearly all the other species with which we share this small, fragile planet. Our own fate is inexorably tied up with the fate of Earth's delicately balanced network of ecosystems-earth systems and intricate web of life.

In a section titled "Earthbound" within a book chapter on "Militarising Space", the Rightwing Economist magazine argues for Government to get out of the way of private business and its exploitation of a new emerging market in the realms of space ("Modern Warfare", op. cit., pp145-150: this book is basically a compilation of earlier Economist articles). The "Earthbound" article (originally published in August 2008) argued for an American "trade-off between trade and security", and so for the US to give private companies a free hand (ibid.).

This specific Economist article observed that: "NASA, America's space agency, is scrabbling around to find transport to carry its astronauts to the International Space Station" (ibid., p148). Consequently, as the writer defined the situation, the move to more privatisation was well overdue. This kind of free market agitation for private enterprise to piggy-back on Government-funded and driven space and "defence" programmes paved the way in opening up profitable opportunities for the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson. In reality, such capitalist opportunism both provides a cover for the continuing militarisation of space, and is also intimately integrated with this very same process.

RMA Runs Rampant!

Intimately connected with the militarisation of space is what Western military pundits have promoted in the 21st Century as the "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA). This RMA comprises a whole new wave of technologically advanced weaponry and supporting apparatus, plugged into computerised satellite communication, surveillance, and targeting systems.

An Economist presentation explains from its perspective that: (Western) "Theorists call the shift from attrition warfare to system-disruption warfare the 'revolution in military affairs'. Precision weaponry is at its heart" (ibid., p.xii). Instead of the use of carpet-bombing in trying to hit small military targets, precision weapons facilitate less killing of civilians and more effective damage inflicted on enemies. (ibid.). So, supposedly more targeted slaughter and less collateral damage!

The 1990/91 Gulf War was not only paraded as a demonstration of American conventional weaponry but also of RMA. Impetus for a new Pentagon branch, the US Space Force, "gained ground after the Gulf conflict and the (1990s') Kosovo War, in which the use of space was critical. The Pentagon's global positioning system (GPS) satellite constellation guided precision bombs to their targets in bad weather" ("The New Nuclear Danger", op. cit., p121).

Of course, the pin-point precision claimed by Pentagon PR, as "war by media" raged with officially purveyed images being sold as reality, was so much propaganda ("The New Rulers Of The World", John Pilger, 2002/03, pp129-32). The touted success of so-called "smart" highly accurate weapons was grossly over-blown. "In fact, less than 7% of the weapons used in Desert Storm were 'smart' as the Pentagon admitted long after the war" (ibid., p130). For certain, the most searing images of the Gulf War were the horrifying photos of the mass "Turkey Shoot" of retreating defenceless Iraqi soldiers. Many others were buried alive in their trenches by ruthlessly deployed American armoured bulldozers.

At least, 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed. In all: "Up to a quarter of a million men, women and children were killed or died as a direct result of the American-led attack on Iraq" (ibid., p131). Such atrocities fit within a very long tradition of warfare (see: "Mumia Abu-Jamal On War", World Beyond War, 9/10/21 - on "Murder Incorporated: America's Favorite Pastime", core volume of a three part series, co-authored with Stephen Vittoria).

Death Squad Targeted Killing

Command and control of these RMA technologically sophisticated systems enable the US and its mates, like NZ as a member of "Five Eyes", to dominate regions of "low-intensity conflict", and various other relatively limited battlefields and theatres of operation. Killer drone attacks have been the exemplar of this kind of warfare, largely "policing" poorer areas of the planet.

Renowned NZ investigative journalist Nicky Hager revealed NZ's collaboration in American-orchestrated death squad operations in Afghanistan - see his "Other People's Wars: New Zealand In Afghanistan, Iraq, And The War On Terror" (reviewed by Jeremy Agar in Watchdog 128, December 2011). This activity happened under a cover story of reconstruction and peacekeeping. NZ retained three intelligence officers there until recently.

"The core of the RMA is the use of highly sophisticated computer sensor devices, whereby the fog of war can be lifted and commanders enabled to view the combat situation clearly and respond with high-precision (often unmanned) weapons. These technologies are expensive, and available only to the richest states" ("Al Qaeda And What It Means To Be Modern", John Gray, Faber & Faber Ltd., 2003, p82).

To reiterate, American drone warfare is the most obvious example of the RMA in action. It enables American personnel (and their British mates, etc.) to protect their own skins while inflicting terror and murder - committed overwhelmingly with clear illegality - at will around the world on the masses of the restless poor ("Five Reasons Drone Assassinations Are Illegal", Counterpunch, 15/5/12).

As analyst David Valentine remarked on the war in Afghanistan in 2017: "CIA officers managing killer drones are as guilty of terrorism as the Taliban commanders they target from the safety of their enclaves" ("The CIA As Organised Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America And The World", Clarity Press, Inc., 2017, in ch. 6, "The Afghan 'Dirty War' Escalates", p103).

An enormously concerning high-tech development is the rapidly increasing danger of killer robotic weapons. An NZ NGO and others are engaged in an international campaign to ban such artificial intelligence (AI) machines of death (Aotearoa New Zealand Campaign to Stop Killer Robots). The push for such weaponry has gone on for years.

For instance, in a March 2010 Economist article titled "Droning On", the author gloated over how drones had become to the Afghan conflict what the helicopter had been to the Vietnam War ("Modern Warfare, Intelligence And Deterrence", op. cit., p197). Drones were portrayed as "both a crucial weapon in the American armoury, and a symbol of technological might pitted against stubborn resistance" (ibid.). This article actually pitched an argument for robotic killer "pilotless war planes", with a supposedly built-in ethical conscience to reduce civilian deaths (ibid., pp197/8).

Counter-Insurgency And America's Proxy War On Yemen

American State terrorism can be administered directly, or indirectly. The US "shock and awe" invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an egregious case of direct terrorism. Its current war on Yemen is being waged indirectly courtesy of Saudi Arabia and allies. Yemen is the small and very poor country - the poorest in the Middle East - at the entrance to the Red Sea on the south-west corner of the Arabian Peninsula, bordering Saudi Arabia to the north.

The Sunni Saudis are using US, British, French, and other Western-supplied weaponry and collaboration (even courtesy of NZ!) - i.e. supported in other words by Western military, logistical and targeting equipment, along with other assistance - in intensive bombing campaigns against the Shiite Houthi movement, that has swept down from the north of Yemen.

This is a fight that the Saudi kingdom fully embraces since it sees the hand of its arch enemy, Iran, behind the Houthi movement, even though the Iranians showed little participation early on. The US & co have also been helping with the Saudi blockade squeezing Yemen so horribly. Saudi Arabia claims to be backing the legitimate government of Yemen against a rebel uprising. American and Saudi aims have fused in their joint antagonism to Iran and joint desire to dominate the Middle East.

There is a long, contorted, and painful background history to Yemen's present tragedy. Geography, ethnicity, and religion have all combined in shaping and fracturing the political contours of Yemen's population. The basic internal division of Yemen into north and south was formally instituted by a boundary agreement back in 1934, with the southern part under British control serving as a convenient regional naval base, centred on Aden. The British actually ruled it as part of their Indian empire until 1937.

I am old enough to remember when growing up in the 1960s hearing radio reports about the British battling insurgents in Aden! I also remember radio reportage about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya and how the white settlers there were at risk of life and limb. The roots of Anglo-American imperialism were being tested from Yemen to Vietnam!

Yet Another Tragic Victim Of Geopolitics And Oil

In these times, Anglo-American drone warfare still dominates COIN programmes, and nowhere has this been more egregiously the case than in the original testing-ground of Yemen. It has been another victim of Western geopolitical and militarist market aims over many decades. A brief look at the historical record can give some background to today's strife.

A guerrilla war of independence took place in the British colony of Aden and South Arabian Federation, i.e., South Yemen, in the period 1964-67 ("The Encyclopedia of Warfare: A Chronological History", Ed., Robin Cross, Greenwich Editions, 1991/98, p239). For a period, it developed into a civil war. But the "British withdrawal in November 1967 (was) followed by (the) formation of (the) People's Republic (Democratic Republic 1970) of Yemen" (ibid.).

A longer civil war wracked North Yemen during 1962-69 with: "Fighting between Egyptian-backed Republican and Royalist forces before (the) Yemen Arab Republic (was) established 1970" (ibid.). So, by 1970, North and South Yemen had both consolidated under their respective governments. Despite the historical and ethnic divisions that have long plagued Yemen, efforts proceeded for the next two decades in one form or the other to unify this sadly problem-ridden land. These efforts eventually succeeded, at least in name and form, if not in real substance.

In 1990, the two separately recognised Yemen states - the Yemen Arab Republic in the north, and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in south - were united into one country. Yet, there had been continual conflict between the two former Yemens during the 1970s and 80s. Such tensions and strife have carried on right up to the present day. Britain, and later America, have had, of course, a long imperial obsession with the Middle East and its fossil fuel resources. The Anglo-American axis emerged with entrenched proxy powers in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Gulf States, Iran under the Shah, and other regional players like Israel, which were committed to the status quo.

A potential sea "chokepoint" is Bab el-Mandeb Strait "at the mouth of the Red Sea, between Yemen and Eritrea/Djibouti" ("Resource Wars: The New Landscape Of Global Conflict", Michael T. Klare, Owl Books, 2001/02, see 'Table 2.4: World Oil Transit "Chokepoints", p48). The Red Sea links the Suez Canal and connects with the Gulf of Aden and then the Arabian Sea, separating the coasts of Egypt, the Sudan, and Eritrea from those of Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Yemen's status as a possible flashpoint is clearly evident. The US still retains a military base in Yemen, the Al Anad Air Base in the Lahi Governate. It is the biggest air base in Yemen ("Biden's Broken Promise On Yemen", Brookings Institution, 16/9/21).

Raining Hellfire From The Skies Blessed By "Uncle Sam"

"An American destroyer (USS Cole) was attacked in Yemen in October 2000, killing 17 sailors" ("Another Century Of War?", op. cit., p10). The "taken-for-granted" arrogance of imperial power was yet again on show in this region. As historian Howard Zinn has remarked apropos of this particular incident: "I didn't see any reporters ask, 'What is an American destroyer doing there?'" ("Terrorism And War", op. cit., p53).

Never content with just parading its military might, the US has to regularly demonstrate its murderous firepower, with "revenge" often a prime, purported motivation in one form or other. Drone strikes in Yemen started on November 5, 2002, when an American Predator fired a Hellfire rocket, wiping out a carload of alleged al Qaeda operatives, including the mastermind of the attack on USS Cole ("Biden's Broken Promise On Yemen", op. cit.).

While the first deadly drone strike evidently took place on 5th October, 2001, in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan - along with the carpet-bombing, cluster bombs, etc. - Yemen has long served as the special experimental testing ground for US drone warfare. This strategy has targeted especially the regional branch of al Qaeda, known as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The human cost has been heart-rending ("The Hidden Toll Of American Drones In Yemen: Civilian Deaths", 14/11/18).

US-guided drone attacks have plagued Yemen for almost 20 years. "Collateral damage" has been rife (ibid.). While the ostensible goal has been to suppress AQAP, ironies have abounded as usual. Yemen is tormented and wracked with internecine conflict and violence. This syndrome is fuelled by parasitic and complex economic networks both fostered and corrupted by the war. Many AQAP fighters, in fact, have even been "incorporated into militias armed and funded by the US-backed coalition" (ibid.). As well, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an Anglo-American ally, has made secret deals with AQAP (ibid.).

The main assault on Yemen has come of course from the Saudis as the spearhead of the US-coordinated military brigade. "Between March 2015 and July 2021, the Saudis conducted a minimum of 23,251 air raids, which killed or injured 18,616 civilians" ("Biden's Broken Promise On Yemen", op. cit.). In 2015, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, acting then as the kingdom's Defence Minister, launched war on Yemen. This war was intended to reinstate the deposed President Abed Rabbo Mansur Hadi, who took refuge in Riyadh, after being deposed by the northern-based Shiite Houthis, who had captured the capital Sanaa.

Bin Salman and his family have ruthlessly perpetrated war on Yemen ever since. As the mastermind of the blatant and brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, bin Salman has revelled in the hypocrisy of American human rights abuses. "The US denounces Houthi rockets, yet is often silent about Saudi air raids, which are routinely more deadly" (ibid.).

Drone War's Deadly Depredations

US drone warfare was always intended to elude the confines of national boundaries in the rogue superpower's quest for imperial world dominance. It has been designed and driven by "dirty war" exponents like General Michael Flynn and General James Mattis ("Drone Warrior: An Elite Soldier's Inside Account Of The Hunt For America's Most Dangerous Enemies", Brett Velicovich & Christopher S Stewart, HarperCollins, 2017, in 'Author's Note', p.xii).

Brett Velicovich is an American drone specialist, who was a coordinator/analyst for the COIN/anti-terrorist programme. He wrote the book "Drone Warrior" (cited above) with Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Stewart. We have in this book a self-congratulatory tract a la Rupert Murdoch and General Michael V Hayden, former Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA, extolling the virtues of US State terrorism. Indeed, it provides a real insight into the psychopathic mindset of COIN drone warfare perpetrators like Brett Velicovich, who have revelled in their tribalist death squad killings (ibid.).

He portrays drone warfare practices like this: "Finding terrorists who have spent their lives eluding US forces is an art, not a science, and there were only a handful of targetters who could do it successfully night after night. We could find anyone if given the opportunity and resources - and our multimillion dollar-drones gave us the ability to do it with precision" (ibid., p85).

This is, of course, egregious self-serving militarist propaganda (see, e.g., "Don't Believe The Dangerous Myths Of 'Drone Warrior'", Los Angeles Times, 16/7/17). Multitudinous innocent civilian deaths as "collateral damage" do not bother the likes of Velicovich and his State terrorist mates. And naturally the mainstream media are only too happy to oblige...

President Joe Biden promised, on taking office, that the US would withdraw from "offensive operations" against Yemen ("Biden's Broken Promise On Yemen", op. cit.). In criticising the Biden Administration's failure on its promise, the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based "think tank" distinguished by its diverse range of opinions in contrast with so many American Rightwing outfits, admirably puts forward a thoughtful and humane policy for the people of Yemen (ibid.). In the cited article, Brookings proposes that Biden should insist the Saudis lift the blockade on Yemen. Secondly, the US should get Britain, "the UN pen-holder for Yemen", to introduce a new Security Council resolution that would incentivise the Houthis to come to the negotiating-table for a peaceful settlement (ibid.).

Western Repression Rolls On But Some Of The Wheels Are Rusting Up

To the frustration of American militarist imperialists, the RMA programme has not been working out quite as well in the field as originally hoped and intended by any means ("The Role And Limitations Of Technology In US Counter-Insurgency Warfare", Richard Rubright, Potomac Books, 2015). After the US post-9/11 intervention in Afghanistan at the end of 2001, Islamic fundamentalist fighters have since eventually prevailed against another set of invaders.

The Taliban have proved to be such a remarkably resilient and determined enemy that - most dramatically in 2021 they triumphed over the US/North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) alliance, just as their fighters helped defeat the Soviets. While not then known as Taliban, many of them hail back to the struggle against the Soviet forces. Richard Rubright, the author of the book referenced just above, is a former special forces soldier and now a Professor at the Joint Special Operations University (US Special Operations Command), promoting what he sees as a more effective strategy for COIN and the application of RMA equipment and techniques.

At this point it is appropriate to take up a conventional and specifically articulated definition of COIN in order to spell out certain key elements: "A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency (COIN) can be defined as 'comprehensive civilian and military efforts taken to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency (a violent uprising against a government), and address its root causes'" [my emphasis with regard to the last clause] (Counterinsurgency, Wikipedia). We shall explore the meaning of this term in a bit more detail as we go forward in the light of academic and military theory and doctrine, including in its most recent manifestations.

Since the end of World War 2 the American empire has been locked in COIN against a veritable multitude of enemies. This flows on from the US taking over hegemony in turn from the crumbling British Empire, as well as its already deeply-rooted, ongoing expansion. Today, Britain plays very much second fiddle in the predatory Anglo-American axis.

It is important to signal how leading Western strategists and military opinion-shapers/influencers are now caught between the promotion of "light foot-print" special forces COIN operations and drone warfare versus major clashes with the big gun powers of Russia and China, which constitute an enemy Eurasian bloc. Some other likely "enemy" countries also wield considerable firepower for a conventional regional exchange, in particular Iran and North Korea. The latter is even nuclear-capable to a certain degree, and concerns about Iran also continue in the wake of the disruptive legacy of the Trump Administration.

COIN used to be called "low intensity conflict", which effectively means the militaristic brutal suppression of insurgents, although both terms can include systematic efforts to try and win "hearts and minds", i.e. win over the population of the country concerned, or at least gain more popular support for the presiding regime (Peace Researcher, Vol 1, Issue 29, August 1991, "Counter Insurgency: Central Intelligence Agency").

Rolling The Dice And Spinning The Coins

The Western theory of COIN has in fact - relative emphases aside! - long incorporated the two dimensions of military action and politically contrived programmes designed to try and gain popular support for the ruling group. Chillingly enough, a continuing central topic of debate and discussion has related to the appropriate role of each aspect, their complementarity and/or respective relative importance, and such like considerations. After all, suppressing the "lesser breeds" of humankind can so often be less than straightforward!

With the hard-Right trends in the West these days, COIN is shifting towards a more openly repressive, neo-fascist approach as already heralded in the past ("The Role And Limitations Of Technology", op.cit.; "'The Hearts And Minds' Fallacy: Violence, Coercion And Success In Counterinsurgency Warfare", 2017). Even a casual scan of the Internet's online material relating to Western academic and military discussion of COIN demonstrates the built-in imperialist and Social Darwinist assumptions. The underlying operative principles for US foreign policy are demonstrably self-interested and geopolitical in nature.

While the Anglo-American axis is presently phasing down COIN operations in some areas, viz. Afghanistan and Iraq, and supposedly Yemen, a host of so-called "light foot-print" missions currently being conducted all round the world remain on notice of boosted "ready reaction" intervention. As the axis and the rest of the West square up more directly against the duo of China and Russia, along with North Korea, etc., they will be more inclined to use conventional weapons, coupled with RMA, even against a lightly armed opponent as the Taliban were.

The cover of Howard Zinn's "Terrorism And War" has a photo depicting as its "cover image: A US Air Force B-1B Lancer (dropping) bombs while on a combat mission in support of strikes on Afghanistan, December 2001" (op. cit.).This book's back cover blurb aptly recounts that: "A bombardier in World War 2, Zinn spent decades contrasting the rhetoric governments use to justify conflict with the reality of the impact of war, especially on the civilians who are increasingly the victims" (ibid.).

Conflict, Coups, And Counter-Insurgency - "Limited And Unlimited Wars"

The Taliban insurgency against the US/NATO-imposed Afghan regime might have lacked Stinger missiles (as supplied by the US in the 1980s for use against the Soviets) but vehicle-driven suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) proved deadly enough and very intimidating. Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) joined the fray in an even more fierce fashion and continues to cause chaos and mayhem in certain localities. In a horrible irony, this US-engendered terrorist movement is now locked in mortal combat with the new Taliban regime.

Despite Professor Rubright's ritual reference to the restraint in war practiced by the US and its democratic allies, such expressions only amount to transparent word-games. For instance, it would be stretching terminology to call the 1960s' Indonesian genocide a typical case of COIN but it was certainly a systematic, massive bloodbath carried out under the auspices and coordination of the Army and its High Command, including its own direct participation in the massacres. And, all instigated, incited, assisted, overseen, and cheered on/applauded by Washington!

As a "Five Eyes" member, NZ was deeply complicit. To be sure, too, there has been plenty of oil and other resources to exploit, just as in West Papua today, whatever the brutal repression of local indigenous peoples ("See No Evil: New Zealand's Betrayal Of The People Of West Papua", Otago University Press, 2018). No doubt, in lots of situations the US would have wished to have carried out such an annihilation strategy but there have been all sorts of constraining factors to take into account. In so many ways the Vietnam War proved a landmark for American intervention and global reach.

What was called the "Vietnam Syndrome" became an obsessive preoccupation for the US's war-mongering power elite. The debilitating memory of defeat in Vietnam was a legacy that had to be buried in the ashes of a future conflagration, fired by a reassertion of American aggression rubbishing some unfortunate but of course deserving enemy. "In fact, right after the US defeats Iraq (in the 1990/91 Gulf War, President George Sr.) Bush says specifically in a radio address, 'The spectre of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian Peninsula'" ("Terrorism And War", op. cit., p108). Now in 2021, the spectre of Vietnam came back to haunt the US in the reincarnated form of Afghanistan!

Attrition Versus Annihilation

A US Marine Corps manual on "Strategy", published in the late 1990s (MCDP 1-1, 1997), counterposes two concepts - erosion versus annihilation - as "Ends in Military Strategy" (pp54-60). The manual explains: "In an annihilation strategy, our military objective is unlimited: we seek to eliminate the enemy's ability to resist, thus leaving him helpless to oppose the imposition of our will" (ibid., p54).

On the other hand: "The objective of the second approach - a strategy of erosion - is to convince the enemy that settling the political dispute will be easier, and the outcome more attractive than continued conflict" (ibid., p55). Erosion is a strategy by attrition, grinding away at the opponent's position and morale until eventually victory is achieved. The Marine manual has a very ironic observation to make in light of events in 2021.

It comments thus: "If the political objective is unlimited, the military strategy must be unlimited. Conversely, a limited political objective may call for a military strategy with limited objectives - that is, an erosion (or attrition) strategy. In Afghanistan, the Mujahidin and their Western backers sought a limited political objective: to get the Soviet Union to withdraw from the struggle. Accordingly, they pursued an erosion strategy, seeking to make the Afghan adventure too costly for the Soviet government to sustain" (ibid., p56).

In contrast, the manual says, the 1990/91 "Gulf War provides an example of an unlimited military strategy applied successfully in pursuit of a limited political objective. The Coalition had a limited political objective: restore Kuwait's independence" [back into the ambit of the Anglo-American empire!] (ibid., pp56/7). But the force required was big. "Thus, the Coalition employed a strategy of annihilation, pursuing the total defeat of Iraq's military capacity within the Kuwait theatre of operations" (ibid., p57).

To return to the case of Afghanistan, the Western propaganda line in the wake of the 2001 invasion has been: "The Western powers who had led the offensive stayed (there) to rebuild the country and oversee the creation of a successful democratic nation" ("Atlas Of Military History: An Illustrated Global Survey Of Warfare From Antiquity To The Present Day", Dr. Aaron Ralby, Paragon, 2013, p95). Oh boy, the same old crap spins on as always...

RMA Runs Into The Ground!

In the end, the guerrilla fighters triumphed over both conventional and RMA modes of warfare. US/NATO strategic COIN aims got badly confused and all the sophisticated hardware/software systems of RMA applications and their personnel came to no avail against a highly motivated and determined enemy defending the land of their birth and/or self-identity. The resistance spread deeper and wider than just the Pashtun ethnic grouping, the largest such group in Afghanistan, and one which overlaps into adjoining areas of Pakistan. Time was another critical factor.

"In difficult terrain, the balance of advantage still lies with the insurgent rather than the forces of order, which are forced to defend what they already possess, as well as seek out those who wish to take it from them. The dimension so often missing from doctrines of anti-insurgency is time" ("The World Atlas Of Revolutions", Andrew Wheatcroft, Book Club Associates, 1983, p124).

"For a war of national liberation to last for 30 years is not unknown, and at the end of that time, revolutionaries have emerged with their programme and ideology relatively intact. To sustain an anti-insurgent war for that length of time would be to induce impossible social tensions accompanied by demands for political change. No state has successfully accomplished it" (ibid.). For certain, the US/NATO-backed puppet state in Afghanistan could not sustain a war of erosion/attrition after some 20 years. But the defeated Western adventure continues to exact a terrible cost in collateral damage to this so sadly stricken country and its people.

COIN Challenges For Winning Hearts And Minds

Given the ruthless record of the US military and its related agencies, above all the CIA, it is enlightening to further reflect on some of Rubright's musings on how RMA should be used in COIN strategy ("The Role And Limitations Of Technology In Counter-insurgency Warfare", op. cit.). He wants the US to be less "risk averse" and less "politically correct", always ongoing problems in the conduct of wars by democracies, or so runs his line of argument. In terms of more specific recommendations, he advocates greater flexibility in the use of military technology adapted to situations and appropriate strategic/tactical deployment; an increased willingness to sustain more casualties; and the readiness to harden up at times about inflicting "collateral damage".

It is indeed enlightening to read between the lines of Rubright's musings on how to make COIN more effective. Underlying the main text is a sub-text of obvious frustration on the apparent constraints on the US exercise of COIN, papered over by a veneer of purported concerns for democracy and human rights. This charges his analysis with tension.

For instance, Rubright says that: "At present, the US cannot, or will not, subjugate people through mass slaughter or bring homogeneity to a geographical region through genocide of minority groups. Instead, the US is prepared to compete for the hearts and minds of the people in the conflict zone. (But) the US has failed to adequately do so until very recently" (ibid., p11). At this point it must be said that what Rubright is referring to here in the way of gaining support in countering insurgencies in target countries is unclear.

As a former special forces soldier, Richard Rubright himself had experience in Iraq as a member of the occupying American Army there. Yet, in the wake of fluctuating bloody resistance, early 2014 saw a very dramatically violent outcome when ISIS exploded on to both the regional and world stage, gaining at the time quite significant Sunni support in the process.

Given possibly well over a million Iraqis dead stemming from the US invasion in 2003, along with all the other casualties, both direct and indirect, his implication of recent gains of support in this region is certainly mind-blowing (a study notified early in 2008 made such an estimate, viz.: "Iraq Conflict Has Killed A Million Iraqis: Survey", 30/1/08; see also: "Bush's War Dead: One Million" 16/2/09).

But then COIN, as guided by the likes of David Kilcullen, overlapped with annihilation strategy. CIA and Israeli operatives trained "special forces assassination squads for deployment in Iraq based on the Phoenix programme model" used in Vietnam ("The CIA As Organised Crime", op. cit., in ch. 10, "War Crimes As Policy", p149). They slaughtered and tortured at will under close American tutelage.

Most damningly, "the CIA organised the (Iraqi) Ministry of Interior as its private domain, replete with a computerised list of every Iraqi citizen and every detail of their lives" (ibid., p150). Thus, General David Petraeus, COIN adviser David Kilcullen, Donald Rumsfeld's personal State terrorist operative Colonel James Steele, & co. could run riot with their murderous activities.

"Along with US military forces that murder indiscriminately", CIA-advised and-funded Special Police Commandos, CIA-funded death squads, "and the CIA's palace guard - the Iraqi Special Operations Forces" had all contributed their bloody best in a "genocidal campaign" against the Sunni minority (ibid., p144). They had killed "about 10% of the Sunni Arabs of Iraq by 2008, and driven half of all Sunnis from their homes" (ibid.).

RMA In Strife!

Given the course of the discussion to date, we can well observe that the cynical use of Islamist fighters and RMA can yet rebound on its American manipulators. We have now a whole Islamist tradition with the Taliban and their mujahideen confreres, al Qaeda, Syrian jihadists, ISIS, and other groups - all assisted, facilitated, inspired, motivated or activated in various ways by US-led machinations.

As indicated, the implications for COIN and its accompanying RMA are multiple, widespread, and diverse. A major theme in Professor David Kilcullen's book "The Dragon And The Snakes" (op. cit.) is the constant, flexible cross-transfer of strategy and tactics, plus weaponry, etc. between big powers China and Russia, lesser nations, and insurgent and terrorist movements. He paints the enemies and potential enemies of the West as learning and adapting to fight in ways that avoid the kind of 1990/91 Gulf War-type confrontation (ibid.).

"Insurgents may be uneducated and rigid in their thought, but it does not make them stupid. The Taliban might shun Western-originated technology, but that does not mean they are unable to employ it effectively. Their experience with the (US-supplied) Stinger missiles in the 1980s (against the Russian occupation) should make that point clear. Their use of the Internet to communicate propaganda is also adept" ("The Role And Limitations Of Technology In US Counter-Insurgency Warfare", op. cit., p201).

The brutalised Rightwing surge in US foreign policy since 9/11, as most dramatically demonstrated in the Middle East, has chimed in with Israeli strategy on both the home and overseas' fronts. In lockstep as it were, the rise of Islamist Hamas in Gaza, and the accompanying increased frustration, resentment, and intermittent militancy on the part of the Palestinians in general, have led to an entrenched stand-off.

Deadly Israeli military action against Gaza, and similar activities elsewhere - whether in Lebanon, Syria or Iran, or wherever else - are only compounding the longer-term problems for everyone. Such activities are effectively burying any hopes of a peaceful, constructive settlement within Palestine, which seems to be the Israeli long-range intention anyhow. These actions have been facilitated and enabled by the Patriot anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system, drone surveillance and attack vehicles, along with electronic monitoring and tracking infrastructure. Yet there has been some inspiring resistance.

A remarkable instance of this is the protest by: "Almost 800 workers at Amazon and Google (who) joined forces to demand their employers pull out of Project Nimbus - a US$1.2 billion contract to provide cloud services for the Israeli military and Government - and cut all ties with the Israeli military" (Breaking:#NoTechForApartheid, World Beyond War:, 14/10/21). Israel wants Project Nimbus for closer and even more effective surveillance and monitoring of Palestinians and so greater repression of this largely dispossessed people.

President Trump proved openly and outrageously disdainful of Palestinian aspirations. He very deliberately inflamed the overall situation by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, while Israel itself has privileged the status of Jewish identity within its borders, provoking angry protests from Palestinian representatives. Zionist nationalism is thus being systematically promoted over any hope for a viable "two state solution". Meanwhile, Israel risks being drawn further into the Syrian war, against Assad, Lebanon-based Hizbollah, Iran (including in the Gulf), and even possibly Russia.

Grappling With The Challenges Of Global Capitalism

At the time of writing, COP26 was still unfolding so the final outcome was as yet uncertain. However, ultimately suicidal economic growth and industrialisation go on with countries locked into deleterious syndromes like China's "Belt and Road" and Russia's emerging expansionist overseas ventures. These processes are accompanied by fantasies of technocratic grandeur such as those of India, Brazil's dream about "taming of the wilderness", let alone those of so many other countries.

All this style of thinking and practice simply comprise the extension of the model set humankind by Western civilisation and its capitalist expressions - as embodied in the idea of "progress". Whatever then the general result of COP26, we must keep striving ever harder for better outcomes and far greater positive action on tackling anthropogenic climate change, and related problems (WBW News & Action, "Murder Incorporated", 4/10/21; Four New Online Courses To End War And Build Peace, 23/10/21; Anti-War Pro-Peace Resources Database Free to All, 28/10/21; WBW News & Action:#NoWarNoWarming, 2/11/21). All from World Beyond War.

Central themes of my article relate to the embedded imperatives of technological developments that work to aggravate the environmental crisis and the competitive geopolitics driving divisions both within and between countries. From the renewed space race and its corporate privatisation to the RMA use of "smart technology" in warfare, global capitalism presents a system that urgently has to change. And change it certainly will, one way or the other!

Plugging For Life On The Planet

Covid-19 and global warming could at best induce humankind to rally together in tackling and coping with these existential threats in cooperative fashion. So far the track record and all the obvious issues ahead demand redoubled efforts! These days, we are faced with literally existentialist choices. Peace, genuine sustainability, international cooperation, participatory democracy, and social justice are the key principles that must inform our values, attitudes, and behaviour. In the final analysis, only adherence and commitment to these principles can ensure human survival. Let's put them into action whenever and wherever we can.