Guns are not toys

José
Luís Fiori                                                                         Read Spanish Version
Taken
from ALAI-AMLATINA

"One
might ask why a strong State would wish to attack a weaker State, but
that’s not the point. The decisive fact is that, at an interstate
level, the larger unit can attack the weaker groups. Since there’s no
one around who can prevent those attacks, the weaker human groups
live in a constant and unavoidable state of insecurity." Norbert
Elias, Involvement
and Alienation,
Bertrand Publishers, Rio de Janeiro, 1990, pg. 214.

The
reactivation of the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet in the South Atlantic
will provoke a radical and permanent change in the United States’
military relationship with Latin America. For that reason, the first
U.S. explanations made about the fleet’s reactivation (it was created
in 1943 and dismantled in 1950) to the effect that it was a simple
"administrative" decision made for "peaceful,
humanitarian and ecological" objectives, were so surprising.

Lying
is not a capital sin in the field of international relations. On the
contrary, to lie or say half-truths competently was always an art and
an essential virtue of diplomacy among nations. Therefore, what was
remarkable in the statement by the U.S. authorities was not the fact
it was a lie; it was its disrespect for the intelligence of their
interlocutors and Washington’s contempt toward the impotence of the
governments that were affected by its decision.

Washington
also talked about the need "to combat piracy, and the traffic in
drugs, persons and weapons," without explaining why the Fourth
Fleet was not reactivated during the Cold War or after the Cuban
Revolution or the Missile Crisis of 1962, when the "illegal flow
of arms and persons" and "the traffic in drugs" was
equal to or greater than today. That is why the "corrective"
statements by the U.S. naval authorities, made at the Mayport Naval
Base in Florida on July 11, 2008, had so much repercussion.

Particularly
notable was the inaugural speech by Adm. Gary Roughhead, the U.S.
Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations, who redefined the main objective of
the new fleet, destined to "protect the seas of the region from
those who threaten the free flow of international commerce." At
the same time, he warned the skeptics that "nobody should
deceive himself, because this fleet will be ready for any operation,
at anytime and wherever needed, within 24 to 48 hours at most."

With
respect to the protection of maritime commerce, all the experts know
that the capacity to protect the "free flow of world commerce"
is held by whoever has the capacity to interrupt it. In other words,
whoever has the power to protect also has the power to exclude
competitors, if it came to that, when competition breaks out between
the states and the private capitals. And that is happening now, at
the start of the 21st Century.

After
almost a decade of continuous and accelerated growth, the world’s
economy faces skyrocketing prices, speculation and a shortage of
basic products, such as oil, food, and strategic minerals.

Right
now, a new "imperialist race" is taking place between the
major powers, which fight for their security in energy and food,
exactly as happened in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century.
That competition already reached Africa and will soon reach Latin
America in an even more intense form because of its energy resources,
its great mineral and water reserves and its huge capacity for
alimentary production, far superior to Africa’s.

This
is particularly the case of Brazil, which will soon become the
world’s largest exporter of food and one of the major exporters of
crude oil, in addition to being the principal "owner" of
the waters and biodiversity of the Amazon region.

An
aggravating circumstance exists in the case of Brazil, from the point
of view of the U.S. authorities: Brazil is leading the processes for
the creation of the Union of Southern Nations (UNASUR) and the South
American Council of Defense, organizations that exclude the United
States and avoid the Inter-American Treaty of Mutual Assistance and
the Inter-American Defense Board, which are controlled by the
Americans.

However,
this story contains an important lesson for the future of Latin
America and Brazil in particular. Approximately one century ago,
admiral and geopolitician Alfred Mahan was a militant defender of the
idea that the U.S. would never be a "great power" if it
relied only on its economic development. To enjoy international
status, it would require a navy capable of projecting U.S. power
around the world, the way England did in the 19th Century.¹
Admiral Mahan had a great personal influence over President Theodore
Roosevelt in the early 20th Century and later became the greatest
symbol of U.S. naval power of all time.

Understandably,
too, because less than half a century after his death, the U.S. had
become the greatest naval power in the history of mankind,
controlling all the seas and oceans with its seven naval fleets. At
this moment, the U.S. has reactivated its Fourth Fleet but can create
many others, if it wanted, without violating international law,
without the need to use the sovereign waters of other states and
without the need to give any explanations to anyone. Simply by
obeying its own strategic calculations and its power to build and
distribute warships throughout the world, as Alfred Mahan had
proposed.

According
to German sociologist Norbert Elias, the harsh truth is that "if
any State is stronger, or considers itself stronger than its
neighbors, the possibility will always exist that it will try to gain
advantages. This can happen in diverse forms: by harassing its
neighbors, making demands or invading them and annexing them […]
and there is only one possibility that a State with great power to
commit violence will be prevented from exploiting to the hilt its
relative power: it can be repressed only by another State with
equivalent force or by a groups of states that manage to control
their mutual rivalries to take best advantage of their combined
potential for power." ²

José
Luis Fiori is Professor of International Economic Policy at the
Institute of Economics of the Federal University of Río de
Janeiro.

http://alainet.org/active/25274

[1]
Mahan, A.T. (1890/1987), The
Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660-1783,
Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

[2]
Elias, N.,(1990), Envolvimento
e Alienação,
Bertrand Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, pp. 213-214.