Still Another Strategy to Spread a Dying System to the World

Dear George,

Is it true? I could hardly believe my eyes when I read it. Christmas has come early, and the Pentagon has given us the best present ever in its new National Defense Strategy. And, what an improvement it is over the old. Gone is the GWOT, replaced by an ambiguous and ill-defined “Long War”, two words that sing a happy tune of defense contracts spreading out into an infinite future.

Yes, George, America is committed to that ultimate defense oxymoron, “nation-building” in our fight against extremism, which we define as any act that runs contrary to our national corporate interests. Our new mission, one surely ordained by Providence, is to spread a dying capitalism across the face of the earth. Insanity is too sweet to keep to ourselves. We must share it with the world.

While we’re at it, we will not hesitate to “confront the rising military power of other states,” because we are the only nation on earth with the century-old tradition of missionary zeal necessary to spread the Gospel of Profit to natives and savages.

According to the document neither Communism nor terrorism are the threats by which we define ourselves. The new threat is “instability”, which could “threaten regions of interest to the United States, its allies and friends”. How bourgeois can you get? The middle class has always favored stability over freedom, because without conformity, there can be no liberty.

But the paragraph that really sings is the one that asserts we must:

Meet possible challenges from....’more powerful states (that) might actively seek to counter the United States in some or all domains of traditional warfare or to gain an advantage in developing capabilities that offset our own.

There it is, George, a new arms race. Once again, history echoes with the laughter of irony. The arms race bankrupted the Soviet Union. Here we are, bankrupt already, and we’re starting a new one. That’s a knee-slapper if I’ve ever heard one.

But, there’s more. We are determined to prevent our make-believe enemies from “making adversary use of traditional means of influence…by manipulating global opinion using mass communications venues…” From now on, it’s going to be all Fox News all the time.

The document goes on to say that it is imperative that, “The global commons (space, international waters, aerospace and cyberspace) must be secured and with them access to world markets and resources [oil] using military capabilities…” Screw democracy, the military’s only mission since the McKinley administration has been to keep foreign markets open and thriving. Just like malignant tumor, capitalism requires a constant supply of fresh blood to insure its growth.

The document concludes by affirming that the U.S. “shoulders additional responsibilities on behalf of the world…a beacon of light for those dark places.”

To paraphrase Tactics, “They created a smudge pot and called it a beacon.”

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones