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The First Real World War and the Emerging Nuclear Holocaust

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The First Real World War and the Emerging Nuclear Holocaust HAOL, Núm. 13 (Primavera, 2007), 19-41 ISSN 1696-2060 THE FIRST REAL WORLD WAR AND THE EMERGING NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST Petri Minkkinen University of Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: [email protected] Recibido: 14 Diciembre 2006 / Revisado: 24 Enero 2007 / Aceptado: 31 Enero 2007 / Publicación Online: 15 Junio 2007 Abstract: In this article the problematic of the (FRWW) de facto declared by the first Bush First Real World War (FRWW) is discussed in administration after the S-11-2001 atrocities. It the light of Emerging Nuclear Holocaust. This is possible to suggest that the combination of discussion begins with an overview of Warren development of nuclear power for military W. Wagars science-faction novel A Short utilization represented by the Bush-Blair History of Future and related some fifty years coalition and the development of civilian- transition period conceived within world- commercial nuclear power represented by the systems analysis and as that of a major civilian-commercial nuclear power promotion bifurcation by Immanuel Wallerstein. It may by Lipponen open up possibilities for direct or thus be possible to pass into the future sooner indirect annihilation of the human kind in the than anticipated and reconstruct the passage of context of a Nuclear Holocaust in the history, actuality and future in actuality and foreseeable future. nearer than anticipated future, possibly without a Nuclear Holocaust and it may be possible to end On the other hand, as has been the case in the the FRWW without further negative regressions course of human history, though it is possible to into the past and without a Second Real World identify certain cyclical and repetitive War. Our common world is also experiencing a tendencies how the things have been and transition from a broad historical context of emerged, such tendencies are not however Eurocentric globalization into a non-Eurocentric necessary and can be reversed through one, which may also be non-capitalistic. intentional human action and transformative Keywords : First Real World War, Nuclear politics. It is for example possible that the Holocaust, new imperialism, global nationalism, change of power relations taking place within integral fascism, history, actuality, future, the US political class may undo the dystopic Eurocentric and non-Eurocentric broad aspirations of the second Bush administration historical context. and, among other things, undo the recent US ______________________ tendency for militaristic adventurism and related promotion of military nuclear utilization and its INTRODUCTION escalation. On the other hand, the escalation of civilian-commercial nuclear utilization, lead by n the context of new imperialism, militarist Lipponen, seems to have powerful supporters aggressive global nationalism and hard form within the intermixed capitalist-political class I of integral fascism of the George W. Bush not only within the European Union but also administrations supported by his faithful globally. Given the interrelated nature of “socialist” adjutant Tony Blair and the right- military and civilian-commercial nuclear wing “social democracy” of the previous utilization and development, it is possible that Finland’s coalition government headed by Paavo even if the escalation and development of Lipponen, our common world seems to be military nuclear power were to halt down as heading for a total nuclear holocaust. In a sense, such, prevention of the emerging nuclear this possibly emerging global dystopia recreates holocaust will fail due to partial nature of this the nuclear war scenario prevalent during the de-escalation and the apparently peaceful nature Third Eurocentric Civil War of the 20 th century of civilian-commercial nuclear development and in the context of the First Real World War utilization prepares way for the rapid re- © Historia Actual Online 2007 19 The First Real World War Petri Minkkinen escalation of military nuclear utilization. In done in the days of Napoleon Bonaparte Kaiser other words, even though it may be possible to Wilhelm II or Adolf Hitler. The survival of promote de-escalation and lessen the prospects sovereignty meant that deep within the world- of nuclear holocaust trough military nuclear system, which was otherwise managed quite utilization, we should not underestimate the rationally, lay a core of irrationality, kept alive combined power of military and civilian- and warm by puerile megalomania. As we have commercial nuclear utilization promoters and seen, capital actually benefited in its earlier days consequent re-escalation. from this division of authority. But in time the division became obsolete and counterproductive. In order to discuss these questions I first explain Since the lords of capital had imposed severe what is meant by the First Real World War and limits on the state system but failed to wring its how it is related to the changes taking place in neck, the possibility lingered that one fine day, the global political and economic context. As an when the attention of the Global Trade introduction to this discussion I analyze the Consortium was occupied elsewhere, the world-systems analysis based science-faction politicians would run amok and plunge the novel by W. Warren Wager. I proceed by planet into a general war” 2. analyzing the policy lines promoted by certain key actors which have promoted the possibility This prognosis, which contains the idea of a of emerging nuclear holocaust. By way of nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the conclusion I discuss the emancipative United States, the latter of which had withdrawn transformations taking place in the global power from the Confederated States of the Earth, runs relations and the possibilities to prevent nuclear roughly the following course of events. By 2000 holocaust in the context of compression of time the world economic system, in the context of and putting time back into joint. which Western capital had gone beyond the traditional boundaries of Western civilization, 1. THE FIRST REAL WORLD WAR had become a nearly complete planetary system and the world economic order was “indelibly In his world-system analysis based science- and irreversibly” capitalist. By 2008 the high fiction or science-faction book A Short History commissioner of the newly formed Global Trade of the Future (1989) W. Warren Wagar made a Consortium (GTC) was in a position to say to long term future scenario which is temporarily his GTC-fellows: “My friends, nothing can stop in line with the analysis of Immanuel us now”. Multinational corporations had grown Wallerstein published in 1995, in which he increasingly larger and by 2010 they were suggested that “We are entering a period of known in all languages as “megacorps”. In transition, which may go on for some fifty years, 2001, after the severe repression of 1995-2001, and which can be described as a major began the last Kondratieff long wave and with ‘bifurcation’ ( vide Prigogine) whose outcome is only brief interruptions “capital flourished as uncertain. We cannot predict the worldview(s) never before, aided by technological of the system(s) that will emerge from the ruins breakthroughs such as intelligent industrial of our present one. We cannot predict what robots. Until the 2030’s the situation of middle ideologies will be born or how many there will and lower social sections of the rich countries be, if any” 1. Within this time frame Wagar remained “at least tolerable” whereas “the perceived an actualizing nuclear war, the masses in periphery and less affluent portions beginnings of which he described as follows: the semiperiphery [such as Spain, China and Brazil] gained nothing”. By 2030 the income “In 2044, the lords of capital ran out of luck. distribution between the haves and the have-nots They had, from the beginning, made one fatal had become highly unequal, not only in the miscalculation. Even after they seized de facto traditional capitalist countries but also in the control of most of the world’s affairs in the early socialist countries such as the Soviet Union, 2000s, they did not oust the politicians and set which belonged to the core countries. In Wagars up their own dictatorship. narrative, “The world economy of capital wrested unprecedented wealth from the earth Officially, legally, constitutionally, and [… and] at the peak of its last long wave, capital sometimes in actual fact, sovereignty remained had carried our species to the threshold of vested in the various states, which from time to universal abundance”. In 2032 the world time continued to indulge themselves in economy entered into a great depression, which struggles for glory and mastery, as they had was “the most brutal in history”. In 2038 and 20 © Historia Actual Online 2007 Petri Minkkinen The First Real World War 2043, which were the low points of this keep it functioning smoothly”. Before the Soviet depression, “half of the workers in the core annexation of Israel, the Palestinians had countries and more than half the workers in the established a new political formation, the periphery had no work”. There was a short Independent Front for Freedom in Palestine in recovery in 2041-42 followed by “a second 2042, which was recognized by the CSE plunge in the winter of 2041-42”. During the observers as “a legitimate indigenous protest summer of 2044 things looked a bit brighter just movement and urged the Israelis to recognize before another kind of catastrophe 3. and deal with it”, which they did not but instead engaged in repression which aroused the Arab Meanwhile, in the context of the last long wave population in arms. The occupying Soviets of capital, nuclear arms proliferation continued. dominated the ADJOV, and engaged in At the time of the comprehensive arms repression against the dissident Israelis. In the limitation protocol signed at the Vienna US, president Mary Chávez had been in trouble conference in 1998 the United States, the Soviet in her bid for the second term due to dismal Union, China, France, Great Britain, Israel, economic situation and she needed “a India, Pakistan and South Africa had nuclear sensational victory in foreign affairs” and this weapons.
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