Viewpoint: Economic Recession-Blasting Fuse of Modern War

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, July 25, 2003

Viewpoint: Economic Recession-Blasting Fuse of Modern War

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The Iraq war has caused world people to think of many questions, one of which being the cause of war. Based on their analyses, many scholars and experts hold that the world political and economic unbalance is the factor that leads to war, but in the opinion of this author, Zhang Yulu, economic recession is the real fuse of modern war.

If one examines the wars broken out ever since more than a century ago, one will discover an interesting phenomenon, that is, each fairly big economic recession (or economic crisis) was inevitably followed by the eruption of a war. This is true with World I, World War II, the Gulf War, as well as the Iraq war. It can be said that economic downturn is the blasting fuse of modern war.

After the establishment of the capitalist system in Western countries, the market economy gradually replaced the natural economy to hold a dominant position. The market economy, more often than not, presented itself as a "surplus economy". The economic crisis is the result of this kind of relative excess and a passive method for eliminating the excess. During the period of recession, there are sharp social contradictions, stockpiling commodities and declining production, under this circumstance, the State must bear the responsibility to eliminate excess and stimulate production. The most effective method to solve this contradiction is to increase military spending. The development of armaments and military industry can, on the one hand, consume huge amounts of "surplus" materials and, on the other hand, can speed up the transfer of military science and technology to civilian enterprises and comply with the requirement for the large-scale updating of fixed assets during the recession period. The interactions of the two major forces--the sharp domestic contradictions and the expansion of military strengths-are bound to cause certain big powers to cherish the motive to lift themselves out of the "quagmire" of recession by relying on war. No wonder before the Iraq war completely came to an end, certain American "experts" began to calculate how large a role the Iraq war could play for US economic recovery.

As a matter of fact, the United States is quite experienced in making a big fortune out of war and making use of war to remedy recession. World War I helped the United States to secure its throne as the world's number one power, World War II helped it to attain the position as a superpower. Victory in the Gulf War, to a certain extent, helped bring about a "new economy" and a period of 10-year-long economic prosperity for the United States.

Owing to US military might, many countries have attached themselves to or are dependent on America politically and militarily, as a result, US hegemony pushes its way through, thus objectively making the United States become the country enjoying the most "stability" in the world. US present economic difficulty is associated with the declining investment rates resulted from enterprises' overproduction capacity and companies' accounting scandals, thus laying bare the aspect of false prosperity of its "new economy", but the most direct fuse of US economic recession is the "9.11" incident, it exposes the weakness of the US "security system", predicting that the "investment paradise" is facing challenges. So, in a certain sense, American economic recession is caused by the threat to its hegemony, not purely due to economic factors.

The US government is well aware of the relations among US economic prosperity, its security and world security, the United States holds that to maintain US economic prosperity, it is essential to ensure national security, restore the "investment paradise" position and create neither too big nor too small troubles to the world, leaving other parts of the world in a state of "controlled" insecurity. Only by doing so, can the United States "gain benefits as can a fisherman". That's why the United States is going all out to attack "terrorism" at all costs, which presently poses the greatest threat to the country; blockade so-called disobedient "axis of evil countries", guard against potential competitors such as China, Russia and Europe, and reestablish a "secured islet". The Afghanistan war produced the effect of "killing three birds with one stone", dealt a heavy blow to terrorism and at the same time helped US influence to penetrate into regions close to China and Russia. Guided by this policy and inspired by victory gained in the anti-terrorism war, the United States started attacks on Iraq in defiance of world people's strong anti-war cries. This action was neither taken out of the emotional impulse of President George W. Bush, nor was it taken purely for oil interests.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union once greatly excited some people who thought that war danger had decreased with the conclusion of the Cold War. Now it turns out that the world dominated by one superpower is more disquiet than it is faced with the contest between two powers for hegemony. The world is analogous to a scale that can be balanced only when things on both ends are of equal weights, change in the weight on one end means the loss of balance. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the strength restraining the United States has been weakened, multi-polarization is in the process of development, the United States, being the sole superpower, increasingly likes to speak in a "Tomahawk" way. Especially when the tranquillity of various countries has begun to be linked up with the performance of the US economy, as a "folk prescription" for remedying US economic recession, war has become a "good recipe".

The United States has repeatedly drawn benefits from its military might, so it has made up its mind to maintain its military leading position. As soon as he took office, President Bush declared his intention to build an "unmatchable" military force, and approved the defense budget totaling US$310 billion for 2001 and the country's budgeted military spending reached as high as US$392 billion for 2003, even higher than the combined total of other 20 military powers. An additional war fund worth nearly US$80 billion was put in during the Iraq war. It seems that the dose of fitness "desperate cures" of the United States will continuously be put into use.

By People's Daily Online

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