Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Race to Destruction
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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Reagan’s domestic programs involved a substantial transfer of wealth
from the poor to the rich and huge state intervention in the economy
through the military system. It was evident, and predicted, that the
political leadership would therefore be compelled to seek international
confrontation and to devise a series of threats, which have ranged from
Libyan hit-men stalking Washington to assassinate Our Leader, 93 to the
military threat posed by Grenada, to the “window of vulnerability.” The
accompanying rhetoric is reminiscent of NSC 68 and the exploitation of
the Korean war as proof of Soviet intentions, and of the Kennedy days.
In El Salvador, for example, the Carter Administration viewed the
problem as a local one: its task was to conduct a massacre of sufficient
scale to guarantee the rule of the gangsters of its choice. Reagan took up
and extended this challenge, but presented it as a battle against “the
focus of evil in our time,” the source of all turmoil in the world, a change
in format that is the natural concomitant of the shift in domestic
programs. 94 There are many other examples.
It was also predictable, and predicted, that the second Reagan term
would see a diminution in hysterical rhetoric and the desperate search
for international confrontation. The reason that will be proffered is that
the Russians have been tamed by Reagan’s stern display of manliness;
the real reason is that it is becoming necessary to face the costs of
Reagan’s Keynesian excesses, and boundless military spending will not
serve this end. Hence the Soviet threat of global conquest will somewhat
dissipate—this, of course, on the assumption that no major challenge
arises to American domination. If, say, Marcos goes the way of the Shah
or Somoza, then the Russians will once again be on the march.
For similar reasons, one may anticipate that the US will show some
interest in arms negotiations, and may even accept an agreement as
long as it satisfies certain basic conditions. The comparative advantage
of the US is no longer in production, so limits on scale of weaponry are