War for Resources?

Well, I managed to piss more than a few people off with my comments about Venezuela. On at least one site, my comments became transmogrified into, "Conservative Publication Calls for Assassination of Hugo Chavez." If only, my friends, if only.

Frankly, despite the anger it inspired, I'm not really sure if what I wrote got across the point I was trying to make, so I'm going to give it another shot.

I think I let my hatred of Hugo Chavez get in the way. When, in the Summer of 2001, I had a chance to personally speak with a representative of the Organization of American States, I used my time to berate him about how, if Communist Cuba was not welcome in the OAS, then neither should be Chavez' Venezuela. So I can date my hatred of the man back at least to that point. Of course, more accurately, I can date it to whenever the first moment I learned of the existence of Mr. Chavez and of his politics.

But, in truth, the real point of the column wasn't about Venezuela at all. I need not again recite my litany of complaints about that nation: it's support for Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, its involvement in subversive activities all across South America, its alliance with China, etc (well, I guess I did just list them). The real point was to assert a fundamental doctrine: if the United States requires resources for the functioning of its economy and others seek to deliberately deny them access to those resources then the United States has the right to take them, by force if necessary.

I consider myself to be an advocate of asymmetrical warfare on the part of the United States. It makes little sense to me that we should confine trade sanction for trade sanction and trade blow only for blow. America has its power for a reason and will not long be able to retain its power if it fails to use it effectively.

Were Venezuela to sign some sort of exclusive trade arrangement with China and thereby harm the US domestic economy, American military action would be an absolute necessity. This is not for simply economic or punitive reasons, but for demonstrative ones as well.

More than a few of my "correspondents" (those, I hasten to add, who bothered to offer something beyond a burst of misspelled profanity) claimed that, if the United States took such action, the world would unite against it. While I believe that to be patent nonsense, it has a kernel of truth to it: if the majority of the world did unite against the United States, American options would be very quickly reduced to a choice between some kind of surrender and the creation of a "Fortress America."

That's what makes action against Venezuela so appealing. In order to prevent China from engaging in a sort of economic encirclement of America, we need to pick up the first crappy little country which tries to pull such a stunt and throw them up against the wall.

Frankly, I think that the roots of our present problems with the Islamists can be traced, at least in part, to the failure of the United States to respond firmly to the Arab Oil Embargo. Where no realistic option for economic retaliation exists, other possibilities need to be explored. If the United States had responded to the Arab Oil Embargo by picking one of the major Arab countries at random and smashing it to little pieces, I doubt if America would have suffered the economic dislocations that it did.

Economic acts of war invite military retaliation. This is a clear line that needs to be drawn. The United States should not recognize a distinction between acts of war involving arms and those which use economic, political, or diplomatic means. The United States greatest strength is its military strength and it should be exploited to the greatest possible degree to ensure the preservation of American power.

Now, there are two important questions to dispose of at this juncture:

First: what gives America the right to use force in response to an economic act of war, and do others have this right? Frankly, I would argue that the right to respond to an economic act of war with military force is one well-rooted in history. The War of 1812, a military conflict, came largely in response to British interference with American trade interests. Any number of British police actions in the 19th Century came about in response to various acts of economic aggression against British interests. The Opium Wars, to pick one example, came about directly in response to economic actions by the Chinese.

All nations clearly retain the right to wage war in response to acts of economic aggression, such as trade sanctions or blockades. This leads us into the second question, which came up a number of times.

If it is proper for a nation to wage war based upon economic motives, was Japan right to launch a war against the United States in 1941? The thing is, that's the wrong question. It's really two questions.

First: was the American oil embargo against Japan an "act of economic aggression" on a sufficient scale to justify a military response? I think it's rather obvious that the answer to that question is yes. The purpose of the oil embargo was the cripple Japan's economic output. By placing such sanctions upon Japan, the United States certainly accepted the risk of war. This was the right thing for the United States to do, but let us not delude themselves, it was certainly an act of aggression against Japan. It was, of course, an act of justifiable aggression, but I see no reason that should have particularly mattered to the leaders of Japan.

The second question is this: was it right for Japan to launch a war against the United States in response to the oil embargo? I think it should be fairly obvious that the answer is no. It was clear to many that Japan could not possibly win a war against the United States: it should have been clear to all. Wars, in my view, must be justified in terms of their cost. Nothing that might be gained out of a war against the United States could possibly justify the potential calamity of war. Similarly, it would be utterly foolish of the United States to launch a war against China for purely economic reasons for exactly the same reason: any gain that might be realized in a war with China would be entirely offset by the horrific toll of such a conflict.

"So," you may ask, "are you saying that it's ok to go to war against other nations for their resources, so long as they're not strong enough to put up a fight?" The answer to that question, in short, is yes, it is.

I'm an old-fashioned imperialist: I'm not crazy. I'm not interested in seeing the United States involved in any war which risks America's strength.

This brings us to another question raised by my critics: how do I reconcile these ideas with my ideas on human freedom? My answer is this: very easily.

I believe in managed freedom. People have freedom, yes, but they cannot cross certain lines. Man has freedom, yes, but not the freedom to murder. Nations have freedom, yes, but not the freedom to oppose the United States of America.

A world which will continue to be free must have an arbiter. There must be one single nation capable of commanding sufficient force to bring rogue states to heel, to avoid major conflict between the other powers, and to provide for a stable international economic system. That one state is the United States of America. You may think that to be unfair, but if you do I do not much care what you think. That's the way things are.

Is the United States the world's police force? Yes, in a very real way it is. It's forced to assume the job due to the lack of a suitable alternative candidate.

And, just as the police have rights that ordinary citizens do not, so does the United States therefore have rights that ordinary countries do not. You cannot speed down a city street at ninety miles an hour: but the police can. You cannot break down your neighbor's door, but the police can. The powers of the police are not unlimited, but they do have their privileges.

The United States plays the same function for the world that a Town Sheriff may have in the Old West. The United States doesn't command sufficient power to confront every threat at once, or to wipe some out altogether. Instead, it has the power to keep order and to keep the most dangerous forces at bay, perhaps gradually eroding the power of those forces.

So: war for resources? Yes, under certain conditions. You may not like it (I'm not even sure if I like it, given some potential implications of the doctrine) but it must be an option.