Krugman, Putin, and the NYT

by EDWARD S. HERMAN

But Krugman has still been unable to escape from the biases and prejudices of the spokespersons and ideologists of the imperial and warfare state, dramatically illustrated in his recent column on “Why We Fight Wars” (August 17, 2014). His remarks here are sadly reminiscent of the themes of the NYT editors, reporters, and approved op-ed columnists. He may over time have been able to rise above Friedman’s “flat earth” absurdities, but he swallows whole the Friedman-Keller-Brooks-Kerry-Power (etc.) party line on the non- U.S./NATO source of any war threat, and on Putin’s villainy.

He tells us that war was once a struggle for gain and still is in the case of contemporary civil strife. But for modern wealthy nations like the United States, war “doesn’t pay.” It is “very, very expensive,” and it is hard to attack and exploit sophisticated economies “without killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.” But how about unsophisticated economies that sit on golden eggs (oil) underground? He never discusses such a case, although Iraq would seem hard to ignore. Also the wars and display of military muscle that allowed the United States to establish a privileged position in Saudi Arabia and other oil and mineral rich states, make for gains to an elite that cannot be overlooked.

Thus, the first and possibly most shocking fallacy in his argument is its failure to distinguish between the interests of the elite, on the one hand, and ordinary citizens and society as a whole, on the other. Doesn’t war pay for Lockheed-Martin, GE, Raytheon, Honeywell, Halliburton, Chevron, Academi (formerly Blackwater) and the vast further array of contractors and their financial, political, and military allies? An important feature of “projecting power” (i.e., imperialism) has always been the skewed distribution of costs and benefits.

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