war crimes
Chapter 15. Economic Motivation for the U.S./NATO War Against Yugoslavia
By Gail Mansouri (New York)
The quest to make the world safe for capitalism as well as to insure that capitalists can continue to enrich themselves at the expense of working and poor people motivate U.S. interventions globally. This economic driving force is not only a 20th Century phenomenon. U.S. leaders have revealed the real motives for war from the earliest days of U.S. expansionism. When the U.S. invaded Canada in 1812, Andrew Jackson admitted, "We are going to...vindicate our right to free trade, and open markets...(qtd in Orchard). In relation to the more recent intervention in Kosovo, President Clinton said, "if we’re going to have a strong relationship that includes our ability to sell around the world, Europe has got to be a key....That’s what this Kosovo thing is all about." Clinton’s statement is not the first to lend credence to the suggestion that capitalist motives are primary in formulating a U.S. global strategy. In 1993, a Pentagon spokesperson said that "a prosperous, largely democratic, market-oriented zone of peace and prosperity that encompasses more than two-thirds of the world’s economy" requires the "stability" that only American "leadership" can provide. In 1998, in a speech to the Boston Chamber of Commerce, Defense Secretary William Cohen explained NATO expansion as a way of "spreading the kind of security and stability that Western Europe has enjoyed since World War II to Central and Eastern Europe....And with that spread of stability, there is a prospect to attract investment."
Several political changes during the last decade have given the big capitalists a greater opportunity to expand into Central and Eastern Europe, especially the collapse of the socialist regimes and the reunification of Germany. However, it appears that substantial investments and economic pressures from world financial institutions did not lead to a fast enough transformation of some of the Eastern European economies. Another strategy became necessary to foster this transformation in the form of military intimidation which manifested itself in the expansion of NATO. Not only did the Alliance admit three former members of the Warsaw Pact but the latter - Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary - joined just as the U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia began. (Rees 1). Military intimidation quickly transformed into military aggression and NATO became a force for military intervention.
The connection between military aggression and economic expansion was admitted by President Clinton in an article that appeared in the International Herald Tribune, "Lasting stability [in the Balkans could only come if] the European Union and the United States...do for southeastern Europe what it did for Europe after World War II and for Central Europe after the Cold War....We can do that by rebuilding struggling economies, encouraging trade and investment, and helping the nations of the region to join NATO and the European Union (qtd in Rees 1). Whether focusing solely on the small province of Kosovo or recognizing the need to strengthen the economic interdependence of the world capitalist system, U.S. policy makers are always projecting the profit motive.
Of course, U.S. capitalists, government officials and mass media have avoided mentioning the wealth that is found in the mines of Kosovo. Only when New York Times foreign correspondent Chris Hedges wrote a brief article about his visit to the Stari Trg mining complex was it revealed that there may be more at stake in the U.S. launching military attacks against Yugoslavia. Hedges wrote, "The sprawling state-owned Trepca (pronounced "TREP-chah") mining complex, the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, is worth at least $5 billion" (A4). In addition to the lead, zinc, cadmium, gold and silver veins of Stari Trg, Kosovo has 17 billion tons of coal reserves (Hedges A4; Novak Bjelic, Director of Stari Trg).
Stari Trg is more than a complex of mineral-rich mines, as Hedges indicates: ‘The Stari Trg mine, with
its warehouses, is ringed with smelting plants, 17 metal treatment sites, freight yards, railroad lines, a
power plant and the country’s largest battery plant"(A4). This complex is owned by the government of Yugoslavia and, though it is slated to be privatized, it may be the largest piece of productive real estate that has yet to be sold to the big capitalists of the U.S. or Europe (Flounders; Sharp).
Yugoslavia, itself, was a nation created through revolutionary struggle for national liberation against fascism. More recently, the U.S. has given it the label, "terrorist state" (S 1234 - Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2000, Section 525), a category which, in effect, refers to a nation that is not quite following the path to capitalist development. In fact, Yugoslavia, the last country in Europe to retain characteristics of a socialist economy, including political and economic rights for the working class, was an easy target for big capitalist fury. The plan to break up Yugoslavia into competing provinces based on ethnic rivalries was carried out through military intervention, devastating bombings and economic sanctions (Goldstein, 4/15/99).
The U.S. military-industrial complex, of course, has a big stake in carrying out war. Huge profits are made by companies like Boeing-McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed Martin who get enormous government contracts to produce Tomahawk cruise missiles for a million dollars each, or stealth fighter planes like the F-117 that the U.S government pays $45 million to manufacture, or $2.1 billion which it spends for each B-2 bomber (Griswold, 4/15/99). The U.S. Government spends more money on the military than the next
eight largest military spenders combined - Russia, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Italy, South Korea (Dellinger 10). Moreover, the rich compete with each other for a share of these enormous profits. After the bombing of Yugoslavia began, stock prices rose to the tune of 17% for Raytheon, 12% for Boeing and 8% for Lockheed Martin (Sloan, 4/29/99).
U.S. defense contractors take an active role in influencing the formulation of military and foreign policy. They aggressively lobbied the U.S. Congress to push NATO into admitting the former Warsaw Pact nations of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. " ‘Companies like Lockheed Martin,
for example, and all of them were active with me overseas,’ said former Congressman Gerald B.H. Soloman, who headed a House task force appointed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to push the membership issue" (Smart EO1).
Now that the bombing is over and the destruction of parts of Yugoslavia is almost total, the profiteers are drooling over the prospects for the reconstruction and development of a devastated country. Estimates are that for the largely rural Kosovo province, profits could reach the $10 billion mark; for the industrialized, urbanized province of Serbia, the European Commission of the European Union estimates reconstruction costs to be $30 billion while Yugoslav economists put the cost at $100 billion (Pomeroy 11). Even before the bombing had ended, the World Bank-International Monetary Fund had issued a report on the "Economic Consequences of the Kosovo Crisis," in which it is estimated "that over 5 percent of the gross domestic product will be wiped out for the Balkans this year, plunging their economies into recession and unemployment..." (Pomeroy 11). Of course, economic crisis means that the WB-IMF will most likely step in with the offer of huge loans contingent upon a restructuring program.
Also, before the bombing ended, and after President Clinton indicated that the European Union should pay the cost of rebuilding, a special task force, the European Commission-World Bank, was set up, in Brussels, on May 14, in order to structure the financing and award the contracts for the reconstruction and development of Yugoslavia. "At least 80% of funding will be low-interest loans, the rest being bilateral aid by EU members" (Pomeroy 11). However, inter-imperialist rivalry is sure to intensify as multinational corporations vie for contracts. A European Agency for the Reconstruction of Kosovo was set up by the European Council on June 22, 1999 while the European Union has earmarked 700 million Euros (over 700 million dollars) for reconstruction, beginning in January of the year 2000 (Rippert 5).
Germany is the dominant European power in the region and is leading the reconstruction efforts. This role will surely help revive the German economy which is suffering from a recession and has a 12 % unemployment rate (Boal 2).
Twelve of the largest U.S. Corporations, as well, have assured for themselves that they would be in the loop for big contracts for the reconstruction and development of Yugoslavia by contributing not only $250,000 each, but also helping to raise $8 million, to fund NATO’s 50th Anniversary celebration which took place in Washington, D.C., from April 23-25, 1999. Of course, it appears that NATO troops will occupy the region for a long time. The following is a list of the companies and their chief executives who sat on the host committee for the event:
Ameritech ( Richard Notebaert)
DaimlerChrysler (Robert Liberatore)
Boeing (Christopher W. Hansen)
Ford Motor (Jacques A. Nasser)
General Motors (George Peapples)
Honeywell (Michael R. Bonsignore)
Lucent Technologies (Richard A McGinn)
Motorola (Arnold Brenner)
Nextel Communications (Daniel F. Akerson)
SBC Communications (Edward E. Whitacre, Jr.)
TRW (Joseph Gorman)
United Technologies (George David)
(Smart EO1)
References
Mark Boal, "The Peace Dividend: Businesses are Waiting to Cash in on the Rebuilding of Kosovo,"21 June 1999
Dave Dellinger, "Showdown (Sort of) in Washington," Toward Freedom (July 1999), p. 10.
Sara Flounders, "Kosovo: ‘The War is about Mines,’ " Workers World, 30 July 1998
Fred Goldstein, "Behind the Imperialist War on Yugoslavia," Workers World, 15 April 1999
Deirdre Griswold, "U.S. Bombs Civilians, Rejects Cease-Fire," Workers World, 15 April 1999
Christopher Hedges, "Below It All in Kosovo, A War’s Glittering Prize," New York Times, 8 July 1998
David Orchard, "Globalism’s First Victim," National Post, 23 June 1999.
William Pomeroy, "NATO Members Squabble Over War Profits," People’s Weekly World, 3 July 1999
John Rees, "Why Kosovo? NATO and the New Imperialism," Toward Freedom (July 1999), pp. 1, 3-4.
Ulrich Rippert, "The Balkan War - The German Army as Occupying Power and Spearhead for German Business," 10 July 1999.
Dave Sharp, "Kosovo Mine Said to Yield $3 Trillion Over Next 5 Years," 13 April 1999
Sarah Sloan, "NATO"S 50th Anniversary - Military Corporations Line Up for Feast," Workers World. 29 April 1999.
Tim Smart, "Count Corporate America Among NATO’s Staunchest Allies," The Washington Post, 13 April 1999, p. EO1.
Commission of Inquiry
c/o International Action Center
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New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@iacenter.org
http://www.iacenter.org
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Table of Contents: Selected Research Findings
