From: "Andy" <as-AT-spelthorne.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 15:54:34 +0000
Subject: Re: What is NATO doing?


There's some really interesting work on things like  this by Michael 
Mann at the London School of Economics. 

Post WW2 and ColdWar1, he regards foreign affairs as a mess which no 
current ideology/perspective understands or can fully explain. 

He would accept the Marxist line about the influence of the corps, 
but would add some degree of pluralisation through media, public 
opinion, pressure groups. However, he stresses [heard him speak in c 
1990], the influence of elites especially the sorts of ancien regimes 
that characterise the British Foreign Office and Armed Forces. This 
is where the old land-owning aristos have hung on and maintained 
their influence as new money appeared.

 As you sort of infer in reverse, the Cold War End should result in 
a peace dividend, but the vested interests are not just those of the 
money making corps. The old establishment [acc to Mann] is alive and 
though hitherto slightly dormant, can be relied to protect its 
interests.

Another analogy would be the way our MI5[toffs] elbowed our Special 
Branch [Cops therefore lower class] out of the Northern Ireland issue 
when the wall came down. War and intelligence as a toff job creation 
scheme, and a corp dosh-machine?

So, yes they would be thinking this at these levels, and it's not a 
normal evolution, just the carving out of a new niche market by the 
under-employed elites who normally prefer to lie low.


>  danceswithcarp <dcombs-AT-bloomington.in.us>
> 
> Yugoslavia is not wirth the $ that NATO is dropping on it and will
> continue to drop on it, period.  Now that the U$ is talking $7-10 billion
> just to get through this year, throw in the French, Grrman, Brit, and
> Italian contributions and we're going to see a lot of money going into
> that hole.  Originally I thought NIKE and McDonalds would make it all back
> for the corps within a generation after the war but that was when the
> investments were low; Now Yugoslavia ain't going to be wirth 20 bucks when
> this is over.
> 
> At the NATO conference the topic was/is the "expanded role for NATO in the
> new millenium."  Among the things they have agreed on is taking on a
> greater responsibility to end ethnic violence.
> 
> No lie.
> 
> I want to say I don't understand this.  But it looks like there is more
> money to be made in weapons than I thought.  A true committment to ending
> ethnic violence is a committment to perpetual war.  And a perpetual
> high-tech v. lower-tech war means creating relatively bloodless perpetual
> markets for all of the corporations that are getting hit by the end of the
> Cold War.  The militaries of NATO have been getting smaller and smaller
> but have been bigger ticket items and fewer corporations are getting the
> contracts.  Will perpetual war result in more small dollar items and a
> more diversified supplier list, or will high-tech perpetual war reward the
> very few corporations who are playing the game right now?
> 
> Can somebody really be thinking at these levels at NATO or The Fed or the
> Wield Bank, or is it just a normal evolution?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> carp
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
_as