Dear cj,
I hope you find this posting of interest - sent today to wsn (World System
Network)
-rkm
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Dear wsn,
Subsequent to our previous discussion of Huntington, Kulturkampf, etc.,
I've had a chance to look at "The West - Unique, not Universal" (Foreign
Affairs, Nov/Dec 96) and to view a tape of Sam's talk to the Chicago CFR,
delivered in January. In addition, I've reviewed my text and video files
re/CFR and have again been duly impressed by the decisive and comprehensive
policy role CFR has played across the board - from formulation of post-war
free-world system, to Vietnam, to China policy...
"The Trilateral Commission doesn't secretly run the world. The
Council on Foreign Relations does that." Winston Lord, President,
CFR, "W" Magazine, August 4-11, 1978, Fairchild Publications
I think Huntington's culture-alignment ideology campaign raises several
topics which should be of interest to wsn, beyond what we discussed
earlier. His thesis and argments - a world-system hypothesis claiming
historical substantiation and primary current relevance - themselves
deserve further examination and analysis. I find his assumptions and logic
very flimsy indeed, and will be posting a concise critique if interest in
these topics is expressed on list.
That his arguments are deceptive and propagandistic should not be
surprising - he himself proclaimed that skillful deception is necessary to
carry the short-sighted masses along with enlightened elite designs, to
help overcome the "excesses" of democracy. And such spurious scholarship
from a recognized authority is equally unsurprising - it is his personal
credibility which is meant to carry the weight of a shoddy hypothesis.
(Shades of M Friedman).
In the case of Huntington, we must clearly recognize that the speaker is as
significant as the message. What he says should be viewed more as policy
than analysis. His claim that Turkey would be the "natural" core-power for
a Muslim sphere, for example, has been backed up by him pushing that agenda
personally to the Turks (in preference to pursuing full EU membership), as
well as by official US encouragement of intervention-drill by Turkey in
Kurdish Iraq.
(Similarly when CFR-colleague Kissinger expressed that "The US has never
won a war without press control", this turned out to be more a policy
announcement than an historical observation - as we learned subsequently in
Grenada, Panama, and Iraq.)
Huntington is not analyzing natural world-system evolution - rather he's
publicizing and lending pundit-credibility to a world-system architecture
which has apparently become a CFR-internal consensus vision, and whose
imposition would solve certain global-management problems for the ruling
elite which were previously solved by super-power antipodal alignments.
Huntington actually says as much if you read between his lines and decode
his CFR doublespeak rhetoric.
Out of all this, what might be most interesting to wsn would be to project
forward the scenario prescribed by Huntington - armed with our collective
knowledge of word-system dynamics - and anticipate the consequences of a
world divided into ethno-cultural spheres, each "led" by a designated
"core-power" (his usage). This might well be where the world is being
intentionally channeled, and understanding the world-system implications
couldn't be more relevant to our interests, or at least I would assume so.
As a kickoff to such a projection, I would draw an analogy with how
Third-World countries have been traditionally dominated by outside elites.
The most common pattern is to identify, recruit, and support a privileged
elite within a country. That local elite is helped to gain local control
and enjoys the ensuing economic benefits, graft opportunties, and general
privileges of power. The local elite becomes dependent on outside support
and arms, and develops a repressive posture toward the general local
populace, thus burning its bridges re/local constituencies, and cementing
its external dependence.
It seems clear to me that Huntington's scenario is largely an extrapolation
of this formula to accomplish regional control within the context of the
coming globalist regime. Returning to the Muslim example, Turkey would be
the local elite (within the Muslim sphere), it's military would be favored
with superior training and weapons, and US/NATO intelligence and backup
would be available when needed.
The ongong acceptance of Turkey's role by the likes of Iran, Iraq, and
Libya would be problematic, to put it mildly, and Turkey's continued
dependence on outside support and direction would be assured. Turkey's
role (as with the other designated core powers) would be to carry the
yeoman enforcement burden, supplement outside intervention when necessary,
and act as a scapegoat when sins are "discovered" and local reorganization
is called for (as we saw in microcosm with: Shah, Marcos, Noriega,
Saddham).
With the US as the Euro core-power, Huntington's culture-spheres would not
be equal - the US would be the big boss over the gang of little bosses
(mafia dynamics relevant here), and the Euro-sphere would be a macro-elite
at the global level, enjoying the same relative advantages globally that
the local core-nations enjoy regionally. (Nothing really new in this
regard.)
The client core powers would not be autonomous local hegemons, and any
attempt by them to establish a bold or expansionist sphere (or even an
overly harmonious sphere) would, if it didn't fit into globalist schemes,
be nipped in the bud, as we saw in microcosm when Noriega defiantly hosted
the Contradora conference and sealed his fate. Ethno-cultural alignments
are perfectly designed for divide-and-conquer tactics, adding another
dimension of convenience and stability to the overall, hierarchical, ws
design.
>>From another perspective, one might say culture-centricity is a cloning of
the proven Soviet-foe model - enabling each sphere to be perceived as
threatening from the outside, while remaining divided internally as was
Russia from its satellites.
Yours,
Richard
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