D O C U M E N T
Globalization and the New World Order
From:
Review of International Affairs
A monthly journal published by the FPI RTY International Politics
Founded in June 1950
Volume 1, Nr. 1082-83, July-August 1999, Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia
Prof. Dr. Ljubiša Mitrovic, Philosophical Faculty of the University of Niš:
Globalization and the New World Order
The contemporary world at the end of the 20th century is confronted
with an unpromising outlook and an uncertain fate of the mankind. The last
decade of this century has been marked by the implosion of socialism, the
crisis of the welfare state and the Euromodel of social development, with
a simultaneous expansion of neoliberalism as the Anglo-Saxon model of piogress,
and an increasingly aggressive onset of the forces of the new world order
on the globe’s political scene. The official international order, reposing
on the UN and its institutions, is being openly challenged and is ushering
a process of anomy in international relations where sheer force stands
above right and justice.
After the Second World War, in addition to the UN as its official structure
laid down in 1945, at least another three sub-systems barged into each
other as alternative projects of international relations, i.e. global world
order. These were:
I. “Soviet’ — in the form of a socialist community and socialism as
the world process;
2. “Anglo-American” — in the form of Westernization, globalization
and a new world
order;
3. The project of an order championed by the nonaligned movement.
Following the collapse of socialism and the destruction of the Berlin
Wall in 1989, the balance of forces in the world was altered. Projects
of pro-socialist and non-aligned orientation were brushed aside and the
United States imposed itself as the only global power with its own project
and practice of unipolarism, the new world order and global planetary domination.
Notwithstanding the process of globalization, the world system is torn
along hostile class and social lines. The contemporary transnational and
corporate capitalism, anxious to multiply its profits, is charged with
numerous contradictions and conflicts. Seeking global domination, the forces
of the unbridled mega-capital are trying to reshape not only the economic
but also the military and political map of the world. It is in this context
that we should view the metamorphosis of the NATO
from a defensive to an offensive alliance, and the resurrection of
the “gunboat diplomacy” at the end of the 20th century. A new lease on
life is being given to Clausewitz’s description of the war as “politics
being conducted by other means~~ and to geopolitical projects and conflicts.
The task of global sociology, i.e. the sociology of international relations
is to recognize behind the silhouettes and masks on the political scene,
within the existing social and historical processes, the essence of their
tendencies and actors, to reveal the direction and sense of their struggle.
Sociology of international relations, in that sense, must help us abandon
the illusion of a one-dimensional and harmonious perception of the ~orld
and to explain scientifically the current dynamics of international relations.
1. MONDLALISM, GLOBALIZATION AND NEOIMPERIALISM:
TRENDS AND ACTORS
Mondialization or globalization is the process of interdependence of
contemporary states within the world system. Mondialization is not a new
world phcnotnenon. Interaction of the societies is as old as the history
of mankind, although its mechanisms and effects differed in different epochs.
There is an essential difference between interaction among societies of
the old precapitalist times and those in the process of mondialization,
which had arrived with capitalism or the contemporary global world society.
There are three distinct phases in the expansion and mondialization
of capitalism:
1. the phase of mercantile and liberal capitalism (1500- 1800);
2. the phase of industrial capitalism, including
monopoly and state capitalism
(1800-1950);
3 . the phase of mondialized capitalism (from 1950 onwards).
Neomarxist Samir Amin, in his study Defense from Mondialization, shows
that imperialism is not just one single phase but a permanent feature of
capitalism (1) which manifests itself differently. Its basic nature is
revealed in its desire to expand and to dominate and subjugate other peoples.
Samir Amin showed how the inequitable exchange of labor between North and
South, between the center and periphery, fosters unequal relationships
of dependence and how mechanisms of imperialist mondialization are being
established. This author is particularly interested in international economic
relations in the era of contemporary global corporate capitalism. Under
the neoliberal countenance of the contemporary capitalism, as seen in Reaganism
and Thatcherism, he exposes its neoimperialist essence, i.e. the quest
for the planetary dictatorship in the service of the transnational mega-capital.
In contrast to the order prevailing between 1950 and 1990 — that was
characterized by co-existence of: (a) Euromodel of the welfare state (a
kind of compromise between labor and capital), (b) national-liberation
movements of modernization of the Third World, and (c) the Soviet model
of socialism — the contemporary setting bears the brunt of erosion and
implosion of all three models of society, and of aggressive expansion of
unbridled mega-capital forces. Nowadays, we have a revolution of information
and communication, of financial markets and information networks, as well
as a recrudescence of imperialist ambitions of the most powerful states
of the world center. This is seen notably in a specific connivance between
the financial oligarchy and the forces of the military-industrial complex
and the tycoons in the mass media industry. It is in the interests of these
forces that the ideology of neoliberalism, globalism and neoimperial planetary
domination was developed. It mirrors the aspiration of the oligopolists
to dominate the economic, ecological and communication resources of the
contemporary world, to exploit the world of labor and enrich themselves
on surplus labor and extra profits. The United States is seeking to preserve
international inequalities and extend its world hegemony. Through its ideologists,
Zbignew Brzezinski and others, it advocates the concept of imperialist
mondialization, i.e. a global domination of the world.
The theory and ideology of globalism was developed by Zbignew Brzezinski
in his works Between Two Epochs (1970) and The Grand Chessboard (1997).
In these and his other works, this “Richelieu of transnational capitalism”,
as he is called, lays out his theory of a technotronic society, of the
US as the “global disseminator of the technotronic revolution” in the world.
According to Brzezinski, the world has entered the stage of globalism which
will be the ideology of the 21st century.
Globalism takes man as citizen of the Earth, member of one single world
community.(2) This cosmopolitan vision of globalism runs against nation-states
sovereignties. In this sense, globalism is an expression of the interests
of the transnational corporations and the United States which is yearning
to become a leader in the global unification of the world.
Globalization, as the developmental mega-trend, expresses the dialectical
process of planetary expansion of certain activities and forms of association
which cover the entire world, their mutual liaison and dependence. In the
contemporary world society, as the expression of scientific and technological
development and international division of labor, internationalization of
numerous activities and sectors of the society — technology, economy, communication,
politics, culture, ecology
has been carried out. Increasingly, reference is being made to the
phenomenon of global changes which cannot be successfully resolved within
the boundaries of one single country, state or nation, but call for their
solution at the regional or planetary level. Globalization. as a complex
process, covers different domains and has different dimensions. One may
speak of such dimensions of globalization as, for example, technological,
economic, political, informative, or cultural globalization. Globalization
as a process and dialectical social relationship can also be analyzed through
an interaction of the system of nation-states, world capitalist economy,
international division of labor, world military order and cultural and
communicational globalization. (3) Globalization itself, as an expression
of scientific and technological progress, is not a negative phenomenon,
especially when its effects on society development do not deny the identity
of national and cultural collectivitics, but synthesize them dialectically,
unify and democratically integrate them. It should, however, be pointed
out that monopoly forces can use globalization for neoimperialist purposes
of domination and subjugation of peoples, and against mankind. (4) There
is a great deal of criticism on the part of neomarxists and postmarxists
against the negative effects of the process of mondialization and globalization.
(5)
2. GENESIS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER AND THE POSITION OF THE
NATION-STATES
All attempts by the UN, following World War II, to establish new and
just international economic relationships have unfortunately failed because
they were sabotaged by the rich. The last such attempt was seen in the
activity of the well-known Brandt’s Commission for the South. In its report
the Commision pointed out the depth of the chasm separating the North from
the South and the necessity of building a just international order, which
would be more solidary and responsible for the development of the developing
and underdeveloped countries in the world. (6) With the implosion of socialism,
abolition of a bipolar balance of forces in the world in 1989, and the
marginalization of the non-aligned movement, it was clear that the last
barriers against uncontrolled expansion and against an aggressive onslaught
of the megacapital forces had fallen down. George Bush in 1989 at the University
of Texas, expressed this globalizing tendency as the building of a new
world order. Of course, he meant an order that would serve the rich and
the powerful: world financial oligarchy, transnational corporations and
the military-industrial complex.
Instead of the announced development in the direction of the building
of a multipolar world, we are now faced with the process of unipolarity.
Namely, the US have instrumentalized and privatized numerous institutions
of the UN (the World Bank, the IMF, Security Council, the Hague Tribunal).
They retained the NATO structure to serve as the military whip to enforce
discipline and obedience in the world. This alliance, which at first was
formed as a defensive union of Western countries, has now turned into an
aggressive organization serving American goals in the building of the new
world order. Following the pulling down of the Berlin Wall and the disbandment
of the Warsaw Treaty, the NATO lost its original meaning and has turned
into the untamed shrew, the iron fist of the American policy for reshaping
the world in the service of cosmopolitan capitalism. The forces of the
NATO are today in function of the theory and practice of limited sovereignty
which are championed by the masters of the new world order, of the US as
the world policeman leading the struggle against freedom and independence
of the nation-states.
As Noam Chomsky has shown in his studies What Uncle Sam Really Wants?
(1992) and World Orders —Old and New (1994) (7), the US are making use
of their international technological preponderance to continue robbing
the world and imposing planetary dictatorship in the interests of a handful
of the richest countries and their big bourgeoisie. For this reason all
those countries, institutions, movements, organizations and individuals
in the world who want independence, freedom and justice are their targets.
This is why an assault upon the European model of social development and
institutions of a welfare state, independent governments and national liberation
movements, trade unions and leftwing parties is being made. In other words,
under attack are all institutions and organizations which are in favor
of the world of labor and defense of national sovereignty and in opposition
to the US imperial hegemony.
Chomsky in his analysis reveals various mechanisms of action of the
“forces of the new world order” in numerous countries of the world, particularly
in Latin America, Asia and Africa, designed to bring down independent governments
and install vassal satellite regimes. He shows how Monroe’s doctrine of
“America to the Americans”, proclaimed in 1823, has cynically, at the end
of the 20th century, transformed itself into the right of the Americans
to intervene everywhere and for everything in the world. Chomsky ended
his studies with a strong condemnation of the masters of the new world
movement but also with the finding that this is basically not a new but
the old order clothed in a new garb.
That the conception and practice of the foreign policy is more or less
an expression of the logic of the domestic policy of a country, is best
shown by the study of Zbignew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard (1997).
Namely, the uncontrolled forces of the world mega-capital want to thrust
themselves upon the world not only through the neoliberal philosophy of
economic development but also through new international relations and by
redrawing the political map of the world. In this study Brzezinski unflinchingly
presents and reveals the ambitious and aggressive plans of the US to become
the global leader in the 21st century who will govern the world, determine
the position and role of others, regional and local actors alike. Skillfully
betting on the card of ethnic and religious conflicts in the “ethnic cocktail”
areas, i.e. in the states having nationally mixed populations, the United
States provoke and manage the crises and conflicts, using them for their
own geostrategical aims. Their geostrategical goal is obviously to keep
Europe in a checkmate position and during the 21st century to conquer Russia
and Euro-asia. In this context of geostrategical games, the Balkans is
the gateway for the further penetration of the NATO to the East. (8)
The aggressive neoimperialism has a longer history than is customarily
claimed. Namely, the US, immediately after the setting up of the United
Nations Organization, simultaneously began forming a new transnational
military power structure of NATO in 1949. In his study, Tomorrow’s Equilibrium
(1957), Robert Strauss Huppe elaborated a concept of the US strategic domination
in the world. According to him, the most important question for the US
is the unification of the globe under their leadership. The leader in that
global unification should be the United States their military might being
the first and irreplaceable attribute of that sort of leadership.(9) The
consummated theoretical conception of transnational imperialism and the
US struggle for a global domination in the 21St century is contained in
Brzezinski’s study, The Grand Chesshoard (1997). In this study he openly
states that the old-fashioned United Nations Organization should be supplanted
by a newly formed Security Council, expressing the new structure of power.
Neomarxjst Samir Amin, in his study Defense from Mondialization (1998)
and in Capitalism, Imperialism, Mondialization (1998), analyzes relationship
between the process of the development of capitalism, mondtaltzation and
imperialism through history to the present time. His analysis shows how
— through a system of inequitable exchange of labor and unfair distribution
of social power — the processes of globalization are instrumentalized for
imperialist purposes by the forces of big capital and particularly by the
US.
Samir Amin reveals that the US performs its neoimperialist role through
five monopolies:
I. monopoly in the sphere of new technologies;
2. control over world finances;
3. control of natural resources;
4. monopoly in the UN and its principal institutions (the IMF, the
World Bank);
5. monopoly of military power. (10)
Notwithstanding the new world order being legitimized by a mythical
form of free market, democracy, open society and human rights, its socio-economic
being is the expression of the interests of the forces of megacapital,
transnational corporations, financial oligarchy and the forces of the military-industrial
complex.
The new world order’s strategical mechanisms of the enforcement of
its will are:
1. the imposition of the neoliberal model of development and transition,
in the form of
dependent modernization
and neocolonialism;
2. the process of globalization which annuls state sovereignty of the
nation-states;
3. the forms of cultural imperialism (by Westernization of the world
as its
modernization);
4. the instigation of internal conflicts (ethnic and religious particularisms)
and
instability, and managing
and using them for its own geostrategical interests;
5. the direct military intervention to bring down legal democratic
regimes and to install
satellite elites which will
promote and serve its imperialist interests.
In this case war really is seen just as Clausewitz once saw it, as
the “continuation of a policy by other means".
In the face of such a structure and distribution of social and political
power at the end of the century, we may wonder where the mankind is going
to? Analysts foresee four possible scenarios for the development of future
international relations:
I. unipolarism — i.e. planetary dictatorship
by the new world order and the United
States;
2. return to bipolarism;
3. geopolitical chaos and the third world war;
4. multipolarism -- a democratic polycentric structure of relationships.
Unfortunately, although the last mentioned option is optimal and just
for the development of equitable international relations, it is today being
suppressed by aggressive neoimperialism of the forces of the new world
order and the aspiration of the US to effect a global domination. Such
a world order (new/old) is not an international democratic order, since
it is being built on diktat of the transnational mega-capital and is in
the interests of the developed states of the “world center”. It serves
a rich minority and upholds an unfair redistribution of power among states,
instead of being democratically constituted on a free association of peoples
and states and through a free alliance of the processes of democracy and
integration in the world. (11) Hence, it is today necessary to develop
a broad democratic anti-imperialist world movement capable of preventing
the birth of a system of planetary dictatorship, i.e. neofascism, and at
the same time being able to clear the way to an authentic alternative in
the development of mankind as the community of equal peoples and nations.
The current position of nation-states is determined by a number of internal
and external factors, among which the placement in the international division
of labor and geopolitical position prevail. It should be pointed out, however,
that at the end of the 20th century the sovereignty of nation-states is
being assailed both from outside and from inside. From outside, influenced
by globalization and its protagonists a deterritorialization of sovereignty
is taking place (it is divided up and transferred to supranational and
transnational regional and international organizations and institutions).
From inside, it is disintegrated through the destructive action of the
forces of tribal particularism (separatism by ethnic and religious movements)
in pursuit of autonomy and secession. In this connection Christopher Lasch,
in his study The Revolt by the Elites: And Betrayal of Democracy (1995),
writes: “The weakening of the nation-states is immanent to both of these
phenomena — movement towards unification and an apparently contradictry
movement towards fragmentation. The state can no longer prevent ethnic
conflicts nor, on the other hand, can stop the forces leading to globalization.
Ideological nationalism is attacked from both sides: from the partisans
of ethnic and racial particularism, and also from those who claim that
the only hope for peace is in the internationalization of everything, from
weights and measures to artistic imagination.”(12) The forces of the new
world order are instrumentalizing, for their geostrategical needs and goals,
both of these two processes — globalization as well as internal ethnic
and religious conflicts — in order to destroy the sovereignty of the small
and independent states and to subject them to their neoimperialist interests.
In such situation and exposed to numerous pressures a number of these countries
sees salvation in regional integrations which mitigate these conflicts
both from outside and inside.
3. POSSIBLE WAYS OF RECOVERY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA AND THE
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA
AND THE STRATEGY OF THEIR
DEVELOPMENT IN TERMS
OF GLOBALIZATION
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, since its inception in 1992, has
been subjected to political pressures and media demonization, and since
May 1992, also to a sui generis economic war, waged through the sanctions.
These various outside pressures and forms of destruction of our country
culminated in the open military aggression by the NATO on March 24, 1999.
The economic sanctions and the war have devastated the Republic of Serbia’s
economy, particularly some of its vital branches (industry, petro-chemical
industry, communications and others).
For the renewal and development of the Republic of Serbia and the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia it is necessary to build a new platform of democratic
and mass mobilization of the population and of the most rational use of
all the resources and factors of development, in order to initiate the
economic recovery for reaching the treshold of normalization. That is a
precondition for the opening of a new cycle of their development and reintegration
into European economic activities.
In that sense it is necessary to meet the following prerequisites:
1.democratic national unity of the population and its mass mobilization
for the
reconstruction of the country devastated by the war;
2. redefinition of the development strategy, centered
upon a radical reform of the
economic and political system of society, relying
on small and medium size enterprises, and on an active role of the state,
as well as on widening and deepening of the process of democratization
(through reaffirmation of the institutes of the authentic functional federalism,
participative democracy, local and regional self-government);
3. the elaboration of a new demographic policy as the key segment of
a national program and development policy of the Republic of Serbia and
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia;
4. promotion of a program of struggle for the unity of the Serbian
people’s cultural space and
the preservation of their national and cultural
identity, irrespective of the current political
geography, with a radical opening towards the Serbian
diaspora and the engagement of its
human and financial resources for the development
of the Republic of Serbia and the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the affirmation
of our national interests in the world;
5. redefinition of the science and human resources policies at home,
through affirmation of
the principle of positive selection, larger allocation
of means into scientific and
developmental research; in other words, the genuine
reaffirmation in practice of the
science and human resources as a key leverage of
the further development of our society
and democratic circulation and changing of the elites;
6. implementation of a program of material and spiritual recovery of
the country, its further development and active preservation of its sovereignty
in contemporary conditions of globalization and ethnic conflicts require
that the Republic of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia elaborate
a new project of association to the Balkans and European integration processes
as the only way to carry out simultaneously the mitigation and pacification
of the growing ethnic and religious conflicts in the Balkans and to open
a room for the reform and modernization of the country’s potentials and
their strategical formation in accordance with the demands of modern society.
Clearly, the above formulated goals for the revival and development
of the Republic of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia do not
have an equal weight and significance.
Yet, it is certain that for stepping out of the present situation,
it is necessary to make a radical turnabout in the “foreign policy” of
the economic development of the country, which will lead to the removal
of the sanctions and the country’s return to international institutions,
as well as its reapproachment to regional and European integration processes.
It is a prerequisite for the institutions such as the IMF, the World and
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, within the framework
of the program of renewal and reintegration of the Balkans, through a new
“Marshall Plan”, to help the country’s reconstruction. Without it, its
own poverty and hopelessness will swirl the country down into the growing
social contradictions and conflicts with uncertain repercussions on our
internal
development, as well into numerous problems of the preservation of our
own sovereignty and integrity.
For this reason, it seems that now, at the very start, it is necessary
to define precisely what I call the key prerequisite and guideline on program
for the reconstruction and development of our country.
Today, regarding the question of regionalization, there are four approaches
relative to the area of the Balkans and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia:
1. the American Initiative for Cooperation in SouthEastern Europe (SECI);
2. the initiative of the European Union — a regional approach;
3. regional integration through the so-called Pan-Slavic Community;
4. the autonomous initiative of the Balkan countries on regionalization.
Certainly that these four different projects of regionalization and
reintegration of the Balkans have different implications for the development
of the Balkan countries, for national and regional sovereignty of the area
of the Balkans. Undoubtedly the best development alternative is the building
of an autonomous initiative of the Balkan countries for good-neighboriness
and cooperation, as a vehicle for inclusion into the processes of the European
Union’s integration. However, in politics, one must rely on reality and
not on ideal projects, often remote from actual interests and relations
in the world. It seems, therefore, that it is now the last minute for our
country to make a radical step towards the European Union if it has a bent
for accelerated development.
While respecting the peculiarities of the Balkan paradigm of development
(13), with the underlying thesis on “organic communities”, and the Pan-Slavic
spiritual community, which must be appraised because of our cultural and
national identity; and taking a critical view of the American initiative
SECI, that beholds the Balkans instrumentally from the standpoint of globalization,
it is indispensable for the Balkan peoples and states to enact mutual cooperation
and integrate themselves into the European Union and, as much as is possible,
build in this context their own autonomous regional concept of development.
(14)
Translated by Boško Milosavljevic.
--------------
(1) S. Amin, La Défense contre Ia Mondialisation (Defense from
Mondialization), Paris,
1998. p. 157.
(2) S. Avramov, Trilateralna komisija — svetska vlada lii svetska tiranija?
(Trilateral
Commission — a World Government or a World
Tyranny’?), Veternik, 1998, p. 64.
(3) A. Giddens, Posledica modernosti (The Consequences of Modernity),
Belgrade: “Filip
Vitnjk”, 1998, pp. 74-81.
(4) Social analysts of our time have contradictory views on the phenomenon of globalization. Thus, for example, Giuseppe Boffa, in his study The Last Illusion the West and the Victory over Communism, writes critically about globalization between the myth and the reality. He says that “globalization is unceasing since the proliferation of information techniques or of modem instruments of communication cannot and should not be halted, so more than one possible policy is resulting from that. All will depend on the choices which people, governments, social movements and parties will know how to follow. This is today a big stake in of the political struggle.’ He also points out the accompanying negative effects of the processes of globalization and neoliberal development in the world, including a frightful growth of unemployment, social inequalities and internationalization of crime (the birth of “a real criminal economy in the world” and “growing globalization of financial capital”), renewal and upsurge of nationalism, but also the revamping up of geopolitical and geostrategic conflicts. See G. Boffa, Poslednja iIuzija (The Last Illusion), Niš: “Prosveta”, 1998, pp. 170-185.
(5) More on such criticisms can be seen in the studies by Samir Amin, La Défense contre Ia Mondialisation, Paris, 1998; Ernest Mandel, Trois Cents Ans de Capitalisme (Three Hundred Years of Capitalism), Paris, 1998, and Pierre Bourdier, La Misère du Monde (Misery of the World), Paris, 1992.
(6) Willy Brandt and als., Sjever i Jug — program opstanka (North and
South — a
Programme of Survival), Zagreb Globus, 1982,
p 36.
(7) Noam Chomsky, Šta to (u stvari) ho?e Amerika? (What Uncle Sam Really
Wants?),
Belgrade: Institute of Political Studies,
1994, and Svetski poredak — stari i novi (World
Orders Old and New), Belgrade: SKC, 1996.
(8) Z. Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard — American Primacy and Its Geostrategic
Imperatives, Washington, D. C., 1997.
(9) Milan V. Petkovic, Sila I mo? u medunarodnim odnosima (Force and
Power in
International Relations), Belgrade: “Kalekom”,
1997, pp. 76-77.
(10) S. Amin, “Capitalisme, imperialisme, mondialisation”, Le manifeste
communiste — 150
ans après, Paris:
Rencontre lnternationale, Contributions publiées — 2eme dossier
1998,
p. 59.
(11) Jelica Štambuk, “Izmedu diplomatije i sile” (Between Diplomacy
and Force), Smisao,
No. 6, 1999, pp. 39-41.
(12) Christopher Lasch, Pobuna elitai i izdaja demokratjje (The
Revolt of the Elites and the
Betrayal of Democracy), Novi Sad:
‘Svetovi”, 1996. p. 49.
(13) Blagoje Babic, Prelaz u tranziciju (The Passage to Transition),
Belgrade: “Prometej’,
1996, p. 8.
(14) The author, Branislava Alendar, may have been right when she claimed that the road to Europe through the Balkans might be very long and uncertain and that “this speed will above depend on the question of the maturity of the nation and its capacity for cooperation and integration, a capacity that will be above all determined in the Balkans. Once they have affirmed themselves in the Balkans, their way to Europe will be open...” See Branislava Alendar, “Put za Evropu preko Balkana može dugo da traje” (Road to Europe through the Balkans might last long), Balkan ‘97, Belgrade: Evropski pokret u Srbiji, 1997, p. 153.
BACK
TO GEOCITIES
BACK
TO PANDEMONIUM