The doctrine of preventive war plus unconventional war

The aggressive face of imperialism in decadence

     In my July 9, commentary, I discussed the turn of the corporate elite to aggression against the Third World, violating the necessary constraints that imperialism had imposed on itself, indicating a transition to a decadent stage of imperialism (“Neoliberalism and the U.S. turn to naked imperialism: The sustained structural crisis of the capitalist world-economy”).  The July 9 commentary focused on the economic dimension of the turn to aggressive imperialism.  Today, I address its military dimension, with the understanding that the economic and military dimensions are interrelated.

      Since the 1960s, the U.S. percentage of global production and commerce has declined, while its arms industry and military forces has remained far ahead of other core nations.  As a result, the United States has utilized direct military force to obtain objectives that it could no longer attain through economic and diplomatic means. 

     The USA had turned following World War II to the development o…