The New Ideology of Imperialism, by Frank Ferudi, Pluto, £8.95 AS THIS review is written, the United States is preparing another invasion - this time of Haiti. This follows US military action in the last decade against Nicaragua, Libya, Grenada, Panama and of course the huge Gulf War operation.
Once again, the sanction of the UN is being sought, and the facade of a "multilateral" operation is being cranked up, with small numbers of troops from other Caribbean states.
That the US has the right to invade other "terrorist" or "gangster" states is now hardly contested.
The idea that each nation possesses sovereignty, that countries have no right to interfere is the internal affairs of others, has been quietly dispensed with. Yet national sovereignty is the very basis of the UN charter.
Two worlds In fact the world has, in the official ideology of Western states, been divided into two: those states disposing of full sovereignty, and those without it.
As Frank Ferudi rightly points out, this is a function of a new and open rehabilitation of imperialism. In the academic and semi-official journals of political science and "foreign affairs", imperialism is being touted again as a progressive and civilising influence.
This is in marked contrast to the 1945-75 period, where open justification of imperialism was not respectable. This conformed to the period, roughly coinciding with the long boom and the Cold War, when third world nationalism was in the ascendency and imperialism on the defensive.
Academic
Ferudi, despite being in his nom de guerre Frank Richards the guru of the RCP, is in his heart-of-hearts an academic. Thus the book is a detailed piece of research of the evolution of Western thinking on imperialism, but is surprisingly weak on analysis of the dynamic of the imperialist system.
Although Ferudi correctly highlights the collapse of the Soviet Union as being an essential moment in freeing the hands of the Western powers to "do what they like" against the poor and dominated countries, that's about it in terms of analysis if the imperialist system.
Imperialism has entered a new phase, marked by deepening inter-imperialist rivalry and a redoubled militarisation.
It's in that context that the re-arming of Japan and the Germany have to be considered. Rather than endless quotes from US think-tanks, some analysis of what the new imperialism represents would have been useful.
Equally, the failure of third world nationalism is noted, but hardly analysed. This is a massive topic in itself.
Pan-Africanism and PanArabism are now almost defunct. National development of the poorer countries. within a capitalist framework was possible during the boom, but today has very limited potential.
Socialist strategy has to analyse and draw all the lesson from the new phase of imperialism, and the failure of all forms of third world nationalism, including the most radical. It has to radically break from "third worldism" and the grotesque tail-endism of third world regimes exhibited by much of the Western left. On much of this of course Ferudi has completely correct positions. But the usefulness of so much research into official thinking in Western universities, military academies and foreign ministries has to be questioned.
It's an old problem for the RCP, with its one-sided concern with official, and especially liberal, ideology.
Socialist readers of this book will find a lot of quotes to back up what they already know about how imperialist thinking is evolving.
But what they need is a detailed analysis of contemporary imperialism - the laws of motion of the modern world system - not just examples of the latest outpourings from Western think-tanks and rightwing academics. Traveller and baby lobbying the Commons