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

The Challenge Ahead
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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must be free to conduct its affairs without popular interference or even
scrutiny, given the awesome forces that it and its enemy command.
These, no doubt, are among the reasons that induce planners to expand
their nuclear arsenals and refine the systems of destruction in ever more
exotic ways: apart from everything else, they serve as a means of
strengthening state power and domestic social control, one reason why
they have such appeal to “conservatives” of the modern variety. Another
effect of these developments has been a tendency to stare at apocalyptic
visions, dismissing political analysis and past approaches to action as
now irrelevant in the face of imminent total destruction. While
understandable, this is a most serious error. The primary threats—the
“deadly connection” and technical advances in weaponry—can be
addressed, and must be if we are to survive. What is needed is clearheaded
analysis and action over a broad range, often with quite specific
and limited goals, not the paralysis that results from contemplation of
awesome visions of destruction.
The threat of nuclear war is real enough. There is much that can be
done to reduce the threat, and it would be wrong, even criminal, to fail
to do what can be done to constrain the military system and to reduce
the tensions and conflicts that may lead to its employment, terminating
history. Nevertheless, to concentrate all energies on delaying an eventual
catastrophe while ignoring the causal factors that lie behind it is simply
to guarantee that sooner or later it will occur. There are reasons why
states devote their resources to improving the technology of destruction,
why they seek international confrontation and undertake violent
intervention. If these reasons are not addressed, a terminal conflict is a
likely eventuality; only the timing is in doubt. It is suicidal to concentrate
solely on plugging holes in the dike without trying to stem the flood at its
source. For us, that means changing the structures of power and
dominance that impel the state to crush moves towards independence