The Privatisation of Global War?

Private lobbies are assuming the traditional powers of the state to proclaim war, to seek the overthrow of foreign governments, and to sentence people to death

In their own mythology, democratic societies are peace-loving, and do not engage in wars of conquest. However, recent trends in "civil society" show the opposite may be true. Increasingly, private lobbies are assuming the traditional powers of the state to proclaim war, to seek the overthrow of foreign governments, and to sentence people to death. Recent examples include a hackers declaration of war on Iraq (see chronicle in Hacker News), and a private lobby in the Netherlands to arrest Milosevic.

In the United States especially, most citizens speak only English, and know no other values except those of liberalism and Christianity. By these standards the rest of the world is indeed defective. Active citizenship may generate pressure to impose national beliefs outside national borders: the more active the citizens, the more likely the war. Together with a sudden military superiority, civil society may drive western states into a first-strike war of global conquest, in 10 or 15 years time.

Hello I am so in favor of just killing them all. Why waste time on watching out for civilians. If they are part of the country then that is just to bad. I know that if the Iraqi's had a choice of whether or not to bomb the U.S. they would not even think twice about it. I say take a whole crap load of weapons and just bomb them until there is absolutely nothing left.

Bomb Iraq messages

Even before the Second World War, some US citizens proposed a Union of the Democracies, an ideological alliance based on Anglo-American values. The movement failed, but it influenced the formation of the NATO. The idea of democratic expansionism revived after 1989, when it seemed that it was about to become reality. Again, this did not happen, but if legitimised a more aggressive western interventionism. Perhaps the long-term impact of democratic expansionism is only just beginning. Certainly, "civil society" was active in getting the NATO into its first real war, in Bosnia.

Recent literature on intervention, especially in Bosnia, shows a new consensus among the international-relations elite. There is now an influential lobby for western intervention, not just in extreme cases, but under conditions which apply to most countries in eastern Europe, the Middle East or Africa. Intervention lobbies are typically grounded on belief in certain universal values. This is not new in itself: most societies believe themselves superior. What is new, is the emergence of political structures which translate this into pressure for military action: human rights groups, aid and relief organisations, cultural-nationalist support groups, such as the Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker - and now militarist hackers. The European peace movements have been generally transformed into pro-intervention movements, a process highly visible in Die Grünen.

So far governments have not tried to stop this, although it erodes their privileges. One symptom is the increasing number of assassination proposals - for Saddam, Khaddafi, Milosevic. This was not a normal form of political discourse in the past: it was only discussed in the most secret agencies of government. Of course this evolution is a double-edged sword: if western governments find such assassination lobbies legitimate, then is it fair to condemn a fatwa against Rushdie? Or against Clinton?

However, I do not think that a sort of free market in declarations of war and death sentences will develop. On the contrary, the flow of declarations is in one direction only: against the enemies of the US especially. There is no lobby for a US invasion of Denmark, nor for a Danish invasion of the USA. "Civil society", the sum of citizens groups, lobbies and movements, amplifies the culture of a society: it is not a generator of diversity, as its supporters claim. Declarations of war, demands for sanctions and intervention, and proposals for tribunals will be directed against the opponents of American geo-political power, against non-liberal values and beliefs, and against states which are not national market democracies. It is probably impossible to oppose this by counter-declarations. I recently proposed the execution of Pinochet, and a tribunal for Thatcher. Although it is surprising that I can do this without legal consequences, the effect of the proposals was zero. They are contrary to the values of western societies: but bombing Baghdad is not.

So I would expect an increasing pressure on western governments to take action against exactly those states, movements, and individuals that they oppose already. The possibility of feedback is obvious, especially if governments respond with intervention rhetoric also. Government , media and citizens groups can lock into a cycle of war fever - there are some examples of this in democratic societies, especially Britain in 1914. So far US ideological interventions have been notorious failures: US troops failed to make Haiti or Somalia into model democracies.

However, technological changes may give western powers an overwhelming military superiority, in the next 10 to 20 years. Coalitions of intervention lobbies might then demand a once-and-for-all war of democratic expansionism, to make good the failure of "1989". The US military expects that in a few years it can execute a 1500-target first strike with conventional weapons. As that number increases, the potential benefits for the US also increase, until at least the illusion may exist that the west can "conquer the world in a day". Or less euphorically, enforce the world order that George Bush and Francis Fukuyama dreamed of in 1990. (The role of Europe in this war would be to send some troops, to applaud, and presumably to resign itself to a future as a theme park).

Realistically I do not think this war probable, mainly because it would destroy the existing international order, which benefits the US already. And there is no agreement on the details of the new world order: in Bosnia, for example, models of a possible Bosnia, competed for the support of the US. But unless there is an effective opposition to the concept of civil society, (in reality an elite of lobbies) war movements may become as familiar as peace movements once were.