Noam Chomsky - The Untold History of U.S. Hegemony & Influence in Europe

I see I can see [Applause] welcome to activism in ik professor Noam Chomsky thank you for joining us again learn to be with you so I want to start with you with some historical perspective and let's work a way up from there before the Second World War what view did the United States government half of fascism in Germany what was the political and military relationship between Berlin and Washington well it was a mixed story Roosevelt himself was I had a mixed attitude so for example he was pretty supportive of Mussolini's fascism in fact described Mussolini is that admirable Italian gentleman he later concluded that Mussolini had been misled by his association with Hitler and had been led kind of down a wrong path but American the American business community the power systems in the United States were highly supportive with miscellany in fact even though parts of the labor bureaucracy were a fortune magazine for example the major business journal I think in 1932 had an issue with the headline I'm quoting it if the wops are unlocking themselves the [ __ ] is a kind of a derogatory term for Italians and the wops are finally under Mussolini they're becoming part of the civilized world it's and there was criticism of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia a lot of criticism but basically pretty supportive attitude towards Muslims fascism when Germany when Hitler took over the attitude was more mixed it was a concern for potential threat but nevertheless the general approach of the u.s. the British even more so was apparently supportive so for example in 1937 the State Department described the Hitler as a kind of a moderate it's fending off the dangerous forces of the right sorry I should continue yes please the State Department described Hitler as a moderate who was holding off the forces the dangerous forces of the left meaning the Bolsheviks the labor movement and so on and of the right namely the extremist Nazis and if there was kind of in the middle and therefore we should kind of support him this is a pretty familiar stance incidentally but in many other cases George Kennan later famous is one of the architects of post-war policy it was actually the American Consul in Berlin up until Pearl Harbor and he was sending back reports which are public which were qualified they said we shouldn't be too harsh and condemning the Nazis there's a lot of what they're doing is kind of understandable they you know could we could get along with them and so on this is one strain and a major one there was also plenty of criticism and condemnation but the general attitudes were fairly mixed now this is sometimes called when at the Munich conference late 38 Roosevelt sent his most trusted adviser Sumner Welles to Munich and wills came back with a pretty positive report the saying we can really work with Hitler it's this conference opens the possibility of a period of peace and justice for Europe and we should work out ways to interact and deal with them now that was late 1938 okay and so it was quite a mixed story back to this good there's good scholarly literature on this if you want to go through the details let's take a step forward than in history in your speech who owns the world that you held in the you won University of Massachusetts you surface from internal documents a scheme known as the grand area could you talk about the grand area and specifically what role Germany was assigned within it this is scholarly work on the Council on Foreign Relations and the State Department the Council on Foreign Relations is the major non-governmental institution concerned with Foreign Affairs it says it draws from a wide range of elite elements of business politics of academic and so on it publishes the journal Foreign Affairs which is the main establishment Foreign Affairs Germany from 1939 until 1945 the Council on Foreign Relations and the State Department held regular planning sessions in which they tried to analyze the wartime situation and lay plans for the post-war economy in the and they developed the concept which they called grand area the grand area was defined as a region that the US must control in the post-war it included of course the Western Hemisphere it included the former British Empire which the US was intending to largely take over maybe Britain would be a junior partner and as much of Europe the commercial and industrial center of you as much of that as possible certainly Western Europe its industrial technological commercial center in the early stages of the war it was assumed that there would be an American controlled area grand area and a German controlled area and they thought in the early stages the war looked as if Germany would be successful in carving out an area after Stalingrad and at the time when the Russian forces were beginning to crank on the Germans driving back toward Central Europe the the conception changed that they realized increasingly that Germany would not survive as a dominant force in the world so the conception of the grand area extended beyond this area was defined as one in which the United States would have pretty much complete economic and political control and exercises of sovereignty by others which challenged this control would not be permitted I can't give the exact wording right offhand but it's something like that and easily find it the major study of this was done by two young American political scientists Clara Chopin William enter in a book called Imperial prank bang a brain trust a Larry Shoop incidentally just come out with a new book studying Council on Foreign Relations programs in the later period but that's the general conception and it was pretty realistic if you look at the power relations in the world the was not an unrealistic picture remember that the United States emerged from the second world war in a position of power that had no historical parallel the US had literally 50% of world wealth it had incomparable security controlled the Western Hemisphere controlled both oceans controlled the opposite sides of both oceans had overwhelming military power economic power who was that other industrial societies had been either seriously harmed or sometimes it's virtually destroyed by the war that the war was very beneficial to the US economy industrial production virtually quadrupled the wartime spending ended the depression which had not been ended before enormous stimulus to the economy the technology was developed which laid the basis for post-war growth it was in that context grand area planning of the kind I described was by no means unrealistic and furthermore it was put into effect was implemented if you look at the policies implemented and developed in the early post-war period they followed these prescriptions of pretty closely read for example the policy documents of the State Department policy planning staff headed by George Kennan by then they more or less spell out the particular variants of these programs each region of the world was assigned what was called its function so the function of Southeast Asia would be to provide raw materials and resources not just for the United States but primarily for the former colonial powers that which needed them in order to get dollars so that they could purchase the US manufacturing sir Germany's function Germany's particular well took a couple of years but within a few years Germany began to be reconstituted as a central part of the grandeur wasn't called for in there anymore it was part of the US dominated global system by the early 1950s there were steps towards every armed rearm it's certainly part of this program I should say beginning actually in the 1943 1944 was to undermine the anti-fascist resistance almost every word they first in Italy the first place where the US and British forces penetrated the Italian resistance had precepts what was holding down probably half a dozen German divisions and parts of Italy had were beginning to reconstruct an independent Society now all of this was dismantled as the US and British forces moved through the peninsula and they pretty much reinstated the traditional order including fascist sympathizer and similar programs were adopted in other parts of occupied Europe as the United States Britain took over including Germany in fact a cannon at one point toppled war planners I've said that the West ought to wall off that's his phrase wall off western Germany from the eastern zone because there was danger of the what they regarded as danger of the labor based but they called communist policies affecting the West might affect them in Italy with a strong Communist Party which was probably gonna win the first 1948 election the u.s. poured enormous resources into making sure that they wouldn't win the election making it very clear to Italians in many ways that if they allowed the Communist take control they'd be in deep trouble one state department officials that the policies have to be clear enough so that the dumbest walk and under Stan we're gonna strangle them unless they look the right way in the first free election in Greece the at first the British moved in they faced a strong that they tried to crush the anti-fascist resistance they weren't able to do it the Americans came in to join them there was a major war which probably a 150,000 Greeks were killed the end result was a restoration of something like the traditional society including fascist elements and the tragedy of Greece goes on from there later in the 1960s there was a real outright fascist coup in Greece military fashion too strongly supported by the u.s. continued supported until it was overthrown by the Greeks in the mid seventies excuse me for interrupting you that's more forward to economic policies doing that era in Europe there was a huge rebuilding effort in Germany under the Marshall Plan and in Germany it's seen in the mainstream perception in a historical literature it's seen as a very noble endeavor it was based on principles of cooperation and so forth and so on however in your book title understanding power you write and let me quote you here Marshall Plan was designed largely as an export promotion operation for American business not as the noblest effort in history and it failed can you please elaborate on that please that's approximately what it did most of the Marshall Plan money actually was transferred from one bank to another in the United States part of the Marshall there was a big problem at the time a major problem of the over of industries industrial production the u.s. had a big surplus of industrial production and the world just didn't have markets the world was virtually devastated by the war so part of the attempt to create markets for us excess production was what I described before ensuring that the former colonial areas would provide the dollars through the to Europe so they could purchase US industrial productions called triangular trade programs and other was the Marshall Plan which did provide funding to purchase American exports in the course of it Europe did develop incidentally about I think probably two billion dollars or so of the thirteen billion it went for oil imports that was part of the u.s. effort to turn Europe into an oil dependent economy the United States controlled the oil Europe cold not oil and same in Japan to try to turn them into oil dependent economies the region the reason that which was again expressed clearly by George Kennan was that if we did that we would have what he called veto power over their policies because we would essentially control the energy speakers so all of that was it is not to deny but in fact it's true that did help European recovery to some extent that how much is argued but to some extent it did develop the you were being the economy but it was also a big boost to the United States in fact if you look at the business literature in the United States they describe this program correctly as this source of the modern multinational corporation that provided opportunities for the US multinationals then beginning to develop expansive extensively to move into Europe as a major place area for investment production marketing and so on so is it like most governments don't aren't altruistic institutions they're working for their interests and that means the interests dominant elements within the society and they can sometimes have beneficial effects but those are rarely the driving forces not just the United States anyone else as well now that you've given us a historical perspective let's move to certain developments that have been happening today according to a report by the Department of Defense dated June 2015 there are forty four thousand six hundred sixty u.s. US troops stationed in Germany it is estimated that there circa and reports vary but let me just point this out 170 military installations and one of the most vital being Ramstein where drone operations as you know are conducted from there what do you think is the view of the US political and military establishment towards Germany today is there any is there any significant change since what what you've described before well if you go back back to the early 50s there was always concern that Europe might move in an independent direction independent of us power it might become what was called at the time a third force in international affairs now the dominant force was the United States the second the second force was the junior super powers Soviet Union Russia Soviet Union and it was concerned that Europe which is of course a rich developed the lanced area that might just move an independent direction there were various proposals for this like the goal advocated what he called a Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals including the major parts of Russia major developed parts of Russia Willy Brandt's must politique was another move in that direction and the US was always concerned with it in fact one of the functions of NATO generally understood was to keep to ensure that Europe would remain under the US Egypt would not move towards an independent direction and those concerns still and in some ways are even greater the Europe does have the capacity of under German initiative to move and independent direction there are some there's some steps in that direction in fact it's very current in fact it takes a the Iran nuclear deal that was just made that the European powers Germany France are very enthusiastic about it they're moving directly to try to reestablish commercial other relations with Iran European know the ministers of the government the corporation executives are flocking to Tehran to try to set up deals and arrangements it's not happening from the United States on the contrary it's even possible possible that the u.s. might undermine the agreement not the executive but Congress might find ways to undermine the agreement in fact if you take a look at the Republican primaries taking place right now they just about every leading candidate I said that when he's elected he's going to cancel the agreement in fact several of them have said when we're elected we're going to bomb Iran that's quite different from the European attitude and it's one of a number of ways they're quite a few in which Europe and the United States are the dominant elements in the United States has following different paths this this kind of conflict has existed for a long time as I say it goes back to the early 50s and it takes different forms at different times with us our declining in the world relatively to others is still overwhelmingly dominant but it is declining the options for Europe race might move in that direction now of course Europe means primarily Germany in September of this year the u.s. announced that it will be sending around a new type of p-61 12 nuclear bombs here in Germany at the Bushell airbase each of these bombs has 80 times the explosive power of the nuclear bomb that exploded in Hiroshima and most notably German taxpayers will cover 1/5 of these cost do you think that Germany is violating article 1 and 2 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which it ratified I think in 2003 well that's a no these treaties are somewhat vague in their formulation so whether it's an explicit violation is a kind of technical question the more important question is should Germany be doing it and in my view absolutely not of the existence of nuclear weapons is a major threat to survival if you look over the record of the past 70 years it's a virtual miracle that we survived literally there are a number of times when the world has come literally a few minutes from a terminal nuclear war so in 1979 for example there was the u.s. automated response systems had detected what they determined to be a Russian attack the reactions should have been a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Russia the National Security Adviser is big new prevents key was virtually on the telephone to tell the president authorize a nuclear attack when information came in saying it was a false alarm in 1983 couple years later the Reagan administration was carrying out simulated attacks against Russia to test Russian defenses operation able Archer it was called including nuclear threats the Russians took it pretty seriously it turns out and there was a major we now know that it was a real war scary that right at that time the Russian automated systems detected what they took to be an American missile attack the protocol was for the single human being named stanislav petrov who was supposed to take those reports hand them over to the high command in which case that probably would have been a preemptive strike he just decided not to do it that's why we're here talking about and there are many other cases like that including real adventurism Cuban Missile Crisis others complicated story but to maintain these systems is Lee that at every moment that raises the possibility of the serious nuclear attacked and remember an attack by any major power will destroy the attacker even if there's no response because of the effects of nuclear winter it's been understood for decades so to try to increase these threats is core test they ought to be reduced not increased or if we intend to survive and now as a period of considerable trim tension where something could break out over crane maybe over Syria and so on the expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed was I think a serious error of policy not just error of its understatement and it's a large part of the problem that's leading to the crane confrontation now this incidentally was in violation of verbal promises not written ones but verbal promises to Gorbachev II thought that the unification of Germany would mean no expansion to the east was not the US view so these are really dangerous development I want to talk about some single examples and work on to the greater mechanisms that are at work here so Germany really recently dropped a case that was investigating the abuses of the NSA which was revealed by Edward Snowden's whistleblowing actions and details included such as eavesdropping on our Chancellor's cellphone even collecting metadata of 20 20 to 30 million German citizens on a regular basis and this investigation was dropped and if we look back a decade el-masri a german national was detained in an holiday in Macedonia by the CIA and extradited to Egypt where he was tortured extensively and it was later determined that he's innocent now in both cases our prosecution went after it but at the federal level it was dropped at some point and we've come to know that u.s. is at play here so what mechanisms are at play here that always align German policy to US interests Germany and France and of the European countries have their governments have made a decision to subordinate themselves the u.s. power shows up in these ways and many others you recall when the president of Bolivia Evo Morales a fluke happened to fly to Moscow and was flying back to Bolivia on a in a plane that had diplomatic immunity of course the European countries including Germany and France just wouldn't let him go through their airspace obviously on US orders the u.s. thought that maybe slit Snowden was on board so they wouldn't let him enter the airspace the pain was finally finally had to land in Austria where it was invaded by Austrian police in violation of every imaginable with diplomatic convention to find out if Snowden was on it although this is that it's kind of pitiful it's a revelation of real cowardice in the face of power that the European elites are unwilling to confront a sign of subordination and real lack of dignity and integrity in my view and the cases you mentioned are examples under the idea that there are I think by now for Latin American countries that offer asylum to Snowden not one European country in fact they won't even let him cross their borders why cuz the u of the master in Washington tells them we don't want them and what he would instead important to recall performed enormous service a patriotic service in fact to the people of the United States in the world he revealed to the population what your government is doing to you that's just what he should have done that's what a that's the responsibility of a decent citizen the idea that he should be punished for this is really grotesque and that Europe participates and it is even worse seems Prasanna there's some there's some there's some resistance to US military presence here such as peaceful demonstrations that take place here Monday in Minich every Monday and yearly demonstrations against the security conference in Munich and more recently demonstrations are developing in Ramstein in front of the drone base however these grassroots actions are immediately associated to the nationalism of the 30s that we are uniting as a nation and standing up by the mainstream press immediately so you've described this sort of action by the mainstream media as the fifth filter could you briefly touched touch upon that again and why the mainstream media uses this sort of action to quell grassroots movements the mainstream media or an ideological instrument now they have they have owners they have commitments they have advertising support and so on they they're very valuable I mean I read them all the time I'm glad they're there but we shouldn't have any they're not coming from Mars they are based on existing institutions of both power and domination within our societies and that affects the way what they choose to discuss at all some things they don't discuss and the ways in which they do it it would be almost a miracle if that weren't true and when they condemn actions like these that should be taken sprays say we're doing the right thing if these institutions condemn us that's pretty good reason to think we're doing the right thing it happens to be counter to their particular interests but they don't represent the public interest they represent certain special interests of power and domination and privilege so if they don't like what we're doing fine let's continue and it is the right thing to do at least if you care about the survival of the species and that's what's at stake we should recognize that in the case of nuclear weapons as well as environmental catastrophe we're really talking about survival of species in the case of nuclear weapons literal survival and it is again I repeat it's come very close in the past and there's no reason to think that's not Germany has strong economic interest in the Middle East to name a few examples it is selling tanks to Saudi Arabia and it's providing submarines to Israel what implications to these relationships have on democracy and the security security of the population there I think they harm the security the population take the submarine these dolphin class submarines that German is providing to Israel are instantly refitted in Israel to have nuclear weapons capacity and that's not aimed at defense of Israel nuclear weapons nuclear armed submarines don't defend Israel they are meant for attack that's what they are and you know what attack they're aimed for in the short run attack on Iran in the Gulf that's a terrible threat not only to the Iranians but to the world then Israel after all has a doctrine official doctrine they say they're free to attack Iran if they choose to furthermore Israel has been is engaged in what the Pentagon described as a war against Iran so is the United States the pen of US Pentagon declares that cyber war is an act of war NATO last year agreed that at a NATO conference that a cyber attack against any native country would call into operation the mutual defense provisions of the NATO treaty which means every NATO country would be entitled to respond to a cyber attack by a military attack the US and Israel are not only carrying out cyber attacks against Iran they're proud of it no that was openly proclaimed with pride a sabotage cyber attacks that's an act of war of killing Iranian nuclear scientists which is probably carried out by Israel we're not sure would we accept them and to send submarines which are in effect nuclear armed submarines will become so the Israel at this time is a an act of a radical act of adventurism which is should not be tolerated by Germany that'll be there are other cases too but this one is particularly egregious Noam Chomsky a Turkish political philosopher a linguist and political commentator thank you so much for joining us thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: acTVism Munich

Views: 76,389

Rating: 4.8914356 out of 5

Keywords: Noam Chomsky, Chomsky, Zain Raza, Imperialism, NATO, America, USA, Benito Mussolini, Germany, Europe, EU, Iran, Requiem For The American Dream, acTVism Munich, activism Munich, Snowden, Assange, Wikileaks, CIA, Trump, Obama, Neoliberalism, Empire, Democracy Now!, Russia, Soviet Union, Putin, Grand Area, New World Order, World War, Marshall Plan, Corporate Media, Manufacturing Consent, Activism, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear, Socialism, Fascism, Climate Change, Global Warming

Id: JXW38gFb6Gc

Length: 35min 37sec (2137 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2019

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