Resistance to Empire and Militarization - Reclaiming the Sacred - Jude Lal Fernando
14. Colonialism Still Matters: Militarization and Imperial Grand Strategy in the Era of US vs China
Resistance to Empire and Militarization - Reclaiming the Sacred - Jude Lal Fernando
Andy Higginbottom [+]
Kingston University
Description
Imperialist “global policing” is a reality. The US pivot to Asia and its military penetration of Africa through Africom adding to its well-established programme of intervention in Latin America, has been redirected in recent years to isolating and ultimately eliminating “the pink tide”. Britain has launched the first of two mega aircraft carriers, primarily for the international projection of aerial strike power, that are likely to be used in areas where there is no equivalent land base, such as the South China Sea or the South Atlantic. Good-detailed analysis of the resurgence of US militarism post-9/11 indicates the mushrooming of private security from the Iraq occupation, impunity for rendition and torture, forward operating bases, enhanced surveillance capacities, and drone warfare. A synthesis is needed for these different elements. However, a recent typology of militarism identified nation state militarism and neoliberal militarism but had not categorized neo-colonial or imperialistic militarism. This chapter will build on Hippler’s (2017) history of aerial bombing to argue that the current strategies of the US, UK, and France demonstrate a resurgent imperialism, with formerly colonized people addressed in a fundamentally different way as legitimate targets in total war strategies.