Washington Wired for War: Why Syria Could Spell World Catastrophe - by Finian Cunningham

When Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip fatally shot the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, the assassination is seen as the event that ushered in the First World War. Within a month, the Great Powers of Europe would become embroiled in a four-year war owing to a web of alliances and treaties: Russia, France, Britain on the one hand; Germany, Italy, and the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires on the other. The US would eventually enter the maelstrom in April 1917 on the side of Britain and the Entente allies against the Central Powers.

The eventual death toll was between 10 and 16 million, making it one of the biggest cataclysms in human history. The war was, of course, not the consequence of a mere single act on that fateful day in Sarajevo. It was the culmination over many years of diplomatic and political skirmishing stemming from economic rivalry between the European capitalist powers. Although some later historians dispute the role of economics as the determinant, it is hard not to conclude as many others have done that the First World War was the classic outcome of imperialist rivalry.

The political and economic slide towards the headlong collision of the First World War is proof of that dynamic. By way of further proof, only 20 years after “the war to end all wars”, following even deeper economic turmoil between nations, the world was plunged into the even greater conflagration of the Second World War, which involved for the first time the deployment of nuclear weapons and a death toll exceeding 50 million.

One constant factor in the source of rivalry between nations is the control of oil, the lifeblood of the capitalist system. Indeed, the control of oil has become an even greater determinant today for international hegemony. This was well understood by US planners in the aftermath of the Second World War. With less that five per cent of the world’s population, but consuming more than 25 per cent of the world’s oil production, US planners have long been aware of the crucial importance of controlling global oil production for the preservation of America’s economic power. This vital national interest far outweighs any much-vaunted American ideals of democratic values.

With more than 60 per cent of the world’s proven oil and gas reserves located in the Middle East, this region is the ultimate key to continuing US global power. It was for this reason that the former US secretary of state James Baker candidly revealed in an interview on America’s PBS Frontline programme in mid-October 2001 that Washington would always be ready and willing, as a matter of national security, to go to war in order to protect its ally Saudi Arabia and the other oil-rich Arab allies. The despotic, dictatorial nature of these regimes is a virtue, not a vice, for guaranteed American oil supply and the continued dominance of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Under the process of globalization, nation state capitalism has expanded over recent decades to take on, increasingly, a transnational character and function. This has resulted in networks of global capital in the form of multinational banks and corporations. In that way, nation states can appear to be cooperating seamlessly in the function of global capital.

Note EU-Digest: The emphasis by the writer on just Western Nations being the culprit of these dangerous developments which eventually could lead to war is not totally correct. The argument should also include major international players like China and Russia, where the economic motivations of special interest groups have also overpowered political doctrines and ideals of the past.

In today's world the true ideals of Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Democracy - whatever someone's preference would be - have basically all been replaced by greedy self interest economic interest groups. 

In fact wars today are just a basic "shootout" between members of this modern Cosa Nostra, better know under the pseudonym World Economic Order. Unfortunately all the members of this "group" also possess the nuclear capabilities to destroy each other and the world as we know it. 

Washington Wired for War: Why Syria Could Spell World Catastrophy | Scoop News