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SPECIAL SCOOP/ALLEN & UNWIN PROMOTION - DECEMBER 2003
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Hegemony: (n.) dominance exercised by one state over others
From the world's foremost intellectual activist, an irrefutable analysis of America's pursuit of total world domination
and the catastrophic consequences that will follow.
For over half a century, the United States has been pursuing a 'grand imperial strategy' with the aim of staking out the
globe. Its leaders have shown themselves willing to follow the dream of dominance right up to the edge of extinction.
Now the Bush administration is intensifying this process, driving towards the final frontiers of imperial control,
towards a choice between the prerogatives of power and a livable Earth. In Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky
investigates how we came to this moment, what kind of peril we find ourselves in, and why America's rulers are willing
to jeopardise the future of our species.
With the striking logic that is his trademark, Chomsky dissects America's quest for global supremacy, tracking the US
government's aggressive pursuit of policies intended to achieve 'full spectrum dominance' at any cost. He vividly lays
out how the most recent manifestations of global politics-from unilateralism and the dismantling of international
agreements to state terrorism and the militarisation of space-unite in a drive for hegemony that ultimately threatens
our survival. In our era, he argues, empire is a recipe for an earthly wasteland.
Lucid, rigorous and thoroughly documented, Hegemony or Survival is Chomsky's most urgent and sweeping work in years, certain to spark widespread debate.
'Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important
intellectual alive.' - The New York Times
'For anyone wanting to find out more about the world we live in...there is one simple answer: read Noam Chomsky.' - The New Statesman
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Priorities and Prospects
Chapter 2 Imperial Grand Strategy
Chapter 3 The End of the Millennium
Chapter 4 Dangerous Times
Chapter 5 The Iraq Connection
Chapter 6 Dilemmas of Dominance
Chapter 7 "Cauldron of Animosities"
Chapter 8 Terrorism, Justice, and Some Useful Truisms
Chapter 9 A Passing Nightmare?
Notes
Index
About the Author: - Noam Chomsky is one of the most influential political thinkers of our time. He is the author of numerous bestselling
political works, including the influential September 11. Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, he is widely credited with having revolutionised modern linguistics.
ISBN: 1741141621 - Australian Price (Incl GST): $24.95 - Format: Paperback - Dimensions: 208X140 - Number of Pages: 288 - Australian Publication: December 2003 - Publisher: Allen & Unwin Australia - Imprint: Allen & Unwin - Subject Category: International relations
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SPECIAL SCOOP/ALLEN & UNWIN PROMOTION - DECEMBER 2003
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EXTRACT - Chapter I
Priorities and Prospects
A few years ago, one of the great figures of contemporary biology, Ernst Mayr, published some reflections on the
likelihood of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He considered the prospects very low. His
reasoning had to do with the adaptive value of what we call "higher intelligence," meaning the particular human form of
intellectual organization. Mayr estimated the number of species since the origin of life at about fifty billion, only
one of which "achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization." It did so very recently, perhaps
100,000 years ago. It is generally assumed that only one small breeding group survived, of which we are all descendants.
Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favored by selection. The history of life on
Earth, he wrote, refutes the claim that "it is better to be smart than to be stupid," at least judging by biological
success: beetles and bacteria, for example, are vastly more successful than humans in terms of survival. He also made
the rather somber observation that "the average life expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years."
We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart
than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if it receives a definite answer, that
answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy
themselves and, in the process, much else.
The species has surely developed the capacity to do just that, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer might well
conclude that humans have demonstrated that capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred
years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold
and calculated savagery, on each other as well.
Two Superpowers
The year 2003 opened with many indications that concerns about human survival are all too realistic. To mention just a
few examples, in the early fall of 2002 it was learned that a possibly terminal nuclear war was barely avoided forty
years earlier. Immediately after this startling discovery, the Bush administration blocked UN efforts to ban the
militarization of space, a serious threat to survival. The administration also terminated international negotiations to
prevent biological warfare and moved to ensure the inevitability of an attack on Iraq, despite popular opposition that
was without historical precedent.
Aid organizations with extensive experience in Iraq and studies by respected medical organizations warned that the
planned invasion might precipitate a humanitarian catastrophe. The warnings were ignored by Washington and evoked little
media interest. A high-level US task force concluded that attacks with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) within the
United States are "likely," and would become more so in the event of war with Iraq. Numerous specialists and
intelligence agencies issued similar warnings, adding that Washington's belligerence, not only with regard to Iraq, was
increasing the long-term threat of international terrorism and proliferation of WMD. These warnings too were dismissed.
In September 2002 the Bush administration announced its National Security Strategy, which declared the right to resort
to force to eliminate any perceived challenge to US global hegemony, which is to be permanent. The new grand strategy
aroused deep concern worldwide, even within the foreign policy elite at home. Also in September, a propaganda campaign
was launched to depict Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat to the United States and to insinuate that he was
responsible for the 9-11 atrocities and was planning others. The campaign, timed to the onset of the midterm
congressional elections, was highly successful in shifting attitudes. It soon drove American public opinion off the
global spectrum and helped the administration achieve electoral aims and establish Iraq as a proper test case for the
newly announced doctrine of resort to force at will.
President Bush and his associates also persisted in undermining international efforts to reduce threats to the
environment that are recognized to be severe, with pretexts that barely concealed their devotion to narrow sectors of
private power. The administration's Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), wrote Science magazine editor Donald Kennedy,
is a travesty that "included no recommendations for emission limitation or other forms of mitigation," contenting itself
with "voluntary reduction targets, which, even if met, would allow US emission rates to continue to grow at around 14%
per decade." The CCSP did not even consider the likelihood, suggested by "a growing body of evidence," that the
short-term warming changes it ignores "will trigger an abrupt nonlinear process," producing dramatic temperature changes
that could carry extreme risks for the United States, Europe, and other temperate zones. The Bush administration's
"contemptuous pass on multilateral engagement with the global warming problem," Kennedy continued, is the "stance that
began the long continuing process of eroding its friendships in Europe," leading to "smoldering resentment."
By October 2002 it was becoming hard to ignore the fact that the world was "more concerned about the unbridled use of
American power than ... about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein," and "as intent on limiting the giant's power as ...
in taking away the despot's weapons. " World concerns mounted in the months that followed, as the giant made clear its
intent to attack Iraq even if the UN inspections it reluctantly tolerated failed to unearth weapons that would provide a
pretext. By December, support for Washington's war plans scarcely reached 10 percent almost anywhere outside the US,
according to international polls. Two months later, after enormous worldwide protests, the press reported that "there
may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion" ("the United States" here
meaning state power, not the public or even elite opinion).
By early 2003, studies revealed that fear of the United States had reached remarkable heights throughout the world,
along with distrust of the political leadership. Dismissal of elementary human rights and needs was matched by a display
of contempt for democracy for which no parallel comes easily to mind, accompanied by professions of sincere dedication
to human rights and democracy. The unfolding events should be deeply disturbing to those who have concerns about the
world they are leaving to their grandchildren.
Though Bush planners are at an extreme end of the traditional US policy spectrum, their programs and doctrines have many
pre- cursors, both in US history and among earlier aspirants to global power. More ominously, their decisions may not be
irrational within the framework of prevailing ideology and the institutions that embody it. There is ample historical
precedent for the willingness of leaders to threaten or resort to violence in the face of significant risk of
catastrophe. But the stakes are far higher today. The choice between hegemony and survival has rarely, if ever, been so
starkly posed.
Let us try to unravel some of the many strands that enter into this complex tapestry, focusing attention on the world
power that proclaims global hegemony. Its actions and guiding doctrines must be a primary concern for everyone on the
planet, particularly, of course, for Americans. Many enjoy unusual advantages and freedom, hence the ability to shape
the future, and should face with care the responsibilities that are the immediate corollary of such privilege.
Enemy Territory
Those who want to face their responsibilities with a genuine commitment to democracy and freedom -- even to decent
survival -- should recognize the barriers that stand in the way. In violent states these are not concealed. In more
democratic societies barriers are more subtle. While methods differ sharply from more brutal to more free societies, the
goals are in many ways similar: to ensure that the "great beast," as Alexander Hamilton called the people, does not
stray from its proper confines.
Controlling the general population has always been a dominant concern of power and privilege, particularly since the
first modern democratic revolution in seventeenth-century England. The self-described "men of best quality" were
appalled as a "giddy multitude of beasts in men's shapes" rejected the basic framework of the civil conflict raging in
England between king and Parliament, and called for government" by countrymen like ourselves, that know our wants," not
by "knights and gentlemen that make us laws, that are chosen for fear and do but oppress us, and do not know the
people's sores." The men of best quality recognized that if the people are so "depraved and corrupt" as to "confer
places of power and trust upon wicked and undeserving men, they forfeit their power in this behalf unto those that are
good, though but a few." Almost three centuries later, Wilsonian idealism, as it is standardly termed, adopted a rather
similar stance. Abroad, it is Washington's responsibility to ensure that government is in the hands of "the good, though
but a few." At home, it is necessary to safeguard a system of elite decision-making and public ratification --
"polyarchy," in the terminology of political science -- not democracy.
© - Copyright © 2003 by Aviva Chomsky, Diane Chomsky and Harry Chomsky
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LINKS:
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