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Treason of the hawks

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 "Treason of the Hawks"

by Stephen Walt

In Every War Must End, his classic study of war termination, Fred Iklé coined the term "treason of the hawks" to describe those tragic situations where hardliners stubbornly refuse to make peace and thereby lead their countries to disaster. Iklé, who served as Ronald Reagan’s under secretary of defense and is certainly no dove, recognized that obstinate opposition to making peace is as dangerous to a nation’s future as naïve pacifism and potentially as damaging as deliberately selling out to the enemy. 

 

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After the gold rush

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After the gold rush
John Gray

The spree is over, the global economy is in ruins and our political masters are in disarray. Make no mistake, writes John Gray, the neoliberal era is over – but at what cost?

goldrush 
Meltdown: the End of the
Age of Greed
Paul Mason
Verso, 208pp, £7.99

One of the more entertaining ironies of the global financial crisis is the United States government demanding that the rest of the world follow its lead in implementing radical Keynes­ian policies. It is not just that after the36of the past months few people take American pretensions to financial leadership seriously any longer. More to the point, no Keynesian policies of any kind had a place in the economic orthodoxy – the deservedly forgotten “Washington consensus” – that US officials preached to the world, and imposed on various countries through the IMF and the World Bank, during the decades that preceded the outbreak of the crisis. Then, sound money and balanced budgets were the touchstones of economic virtue – not, of course, for the US, which has always displayed a fine disregard for these neoliberal dogmas in its own case, but for everyone else, and most particularly for the world’s poor countries.

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Face to face with history

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Face to face with history
Martin Jacques

The UN conference on racism confronted western countries with difficult truths – but that’s no reason for anyone to walk out

 arab woman
Ironies of history: an Arab woman supports a protest in northern Galilee against Israeli state racism

I can think of only one international body that can lay claim to a semblance of democracy: the United Nations. All the other organisations that regard themselves as global – the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation – are creations of the west and their power structures reflect that fact. This is the reason why the United States has always had a troubled relationship with the UN; it is the one organisation where it is not assured of getting its own way. On the contrary, it often finds itself hugely outnumbered, resolutions on the Middle East and Israel being a classic trigger. That, rather than being strapped for cash, is why the US has always been so reluctant to pay its dues. So, it was no surprise to find the US boycotting this year’s UN World Conference against Racism in Geneva, or that it walked out of the first such meeting in Durban in 2001. America is invariably on the defensive on such occasions.

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Confidence games and ponzi schemes

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Confidence Games and Ponzi Schemes

By Lynn Henderson

The United States economy continues its plunge into the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, dragging in its wake the entire world’s financial system. What is the cause of this now world-wide economic catastrophe? Without a clear understanding of its root causes we will not be able to find a way out. Rather the crisis itself will be used to inflict even greater damage on its chief victims, working people here and around the world.

 

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