War vs. Cosmopolitanism

From blog contributor Anne Kass:
Recently I happened onto a lecture given by  Dr. Mary Kalder, a professor at the London School of Economics.  She used terms that I was unfamiliar with --"new" wars, "spectacle" wars, and cosmopolitanism, and other terms in ways new to me, including globalization, nation-state and legitimate killings. I made notes of the lecture which I hope will provoke you to Google Dr. Kalder and cosmopolitanism. I also hope you will agree that her way of framing issues and ideas provides new and useful ways to think and talk about the mess we are in. 

Dr. Kalder noted that WWII ended in a military victory for the U.S., and it spawned an American narrative about America having saved the world. The narrative was enhanced by 50 years of cold (imaginary) war and is now deeply embedded in the American culture. It is a narrative that, of industrialized nations, only America continues to believe.

Globalization -- some worry it means the end of the nation-state/sovereignty and is a danger; others believe it happened because nation-states made conscious policy decisions designed to let corporations take control; others believe it merely means that something is happening to the nation-state -- that the nation-state is changing.

The nation-state, in its first form, was headed by kings who set about to build armies to gain territory. Kings were concerned about building tax structures, eliminating private armies, and creating financial institutions from which to borrow money to pay their armies. Along the way Kings made compacts with their subjects to provide security and other governmental services, generally under threat of revolution. Dr. Kalder noted that one historian said of nation-states, "they are a monopoly on legitimate violence and soldiers are legitimate killers." In any case the nation-state had police and the rule of law and public services on the inside and armies to acquire territory on the outside.

However, war has steadily been losing favor, because of (1) growing destructiveness of weapons and their widespread availability and (2) growing international norms against war -- both formal in the form of the UN and treaties and informal in the form of peace movements. World citizens are ever more opposed to war with human rights as the foundation for their opposition. That is to say, the old view was/is that war is legitimate killing. The new view is that war is a violation of human rights. 

The new view about war is growing but not yet in place, witness Israel and Palestine. Many, many more Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli soldiers than have Israeli civilians been killed by suicide bombers. However, for much of the world, because the Israeli killings are done by soldiers, they are legitimate killings.

New wars are fought not to control territory as were "old" wars such as WWII, but for identity, meaning ethnic, religious, tribal or political oneness. New wars are fought by ethnic cleansing, or genocide, and the violence is directed at civilians. They are fought in failing nation-states and are a process of state un-building. Failing states are those where public services are no longer provided and the tax base has eroded, which damages the legitimacy of the government and gives rise to a criminalization of the economy and law enforcement in the forms of selling illegal items and taxing through hush/safety demands

Spectacle wars are wars fought by the United States and by terrorists. For terrorists, they use a spectacular event to draw the media and to draw people of a like-mind to their cause. For the U.S., spectacle wars are undertaken with spectacular display of military power, against weak states. American spectacle wars are spectacles for Americans but not for the people against whom they're fought.

Spectacle wars help maintain an illusion of a nation-state by creating cohesion through fear and hatred. Spectacle wars are a way to maintain a nation-state without the government having to provide government services to the public as was originally contracted for. Spectacle wars exacerbate the causes for terrorism by encouraging criminalized economies and law enforcement in the weak states and by adding to the polarization by fear, hatred, and general insecurities.

Spectacle wars are difficult to stop because they create groups based on fear and hatred of otherness, and because they create still other groups who make enormous amounts of money from the criminalized economy.

Spectacle war does not maintain security or order as is claimed, but it does provide the political achievement of creating cohesion through fear of external enemies. Terror feeds war and war feeds terror and it all undercuts the rule of law and civil liberties.

Cosmopolitanism: Cosmopolitanism refers to a process and philosophy where nation-states strengthen themselves by banding together -- multilateralism. It is what is happening in Europe (perhaps aided by post WWII NATO and similar structures which promoted cooperative efforts).  Under cosmopolitanism, nation-states remain nation-states, but with conditions. One condition is that they agree never to go to war with one another, to only use force to protect or defend and only in multilateral/international efforts. They use force only to contain, never to compel.  A second condition on the nation-state authority is a commitment for a respect for basic human rights of their citizens.

This all requires persuasion, debate and respect for rule of law, not coercion.

Dr. Kalder ended her lecture by saying that before 9/11, international treaties were growing in number. The Bush Administration used 9/11 as an excuse for the U.S. to act unilaterally using the politics of fear, polarization and intimidation. Given that the idea of cosmopolitanism is relatively new and does not yet have deep roots, it remains to be seen whether politics by debate and reason will win the day.

My own thinking is that the recent debacles in the Middle East, although not having made a dent in the thick skulls of the neo-CONS, have captured the attention of much of the world's population.  Whether the neo-CONS will allow or provoke yet another "catalyzing" event similar to 9/11 in furtherance of their apparent desire to continue waging spectacle wars remains to be seen.  We can only hope that the world citizenry will chose to embrace human rights and reject the notion of legitimate killings.

Editor's Note: Anne Kass is now a regular contributor to the DFNM blog.