Peace wreaks havoc with war

Is "war" being submerged by domestic preoccupations with peace, and material consumption?  As volunteer reservists are called up in the UK, the reality of all-out war is being brought home to ordinary citizens, and to the business community - as never before.  At the Swansea Peace Vigil last Saturday, where we have been standing every week since September 2001, we were approached by a 46-year-old single Swansea Reservist, who asked for advice on how he could resist his call-up, having  received his papers that morning.  "I volunteered to fight for my country", he said,"but this time, the UK is not in danger, and I reject the case for war".  We are helping him to make his case.

But at individual and collective level, the impact of war upon the global consumer economy is beginning to dawn.  Gung-ho declarations about the stimulative effect of war upon the economy, so common on the Old Right, are giving way to grave apprehension about the impact of personal uncertainty upon the structures and systems of the world economy.  As living-standards rise, and are seen to rest on a growing network of peaceful "trade between nations" (in the Adam Smith-ian manner), all-out war is rapidly becoming unthinkable.  Not even the mighty United States economy could repeat a Marshall Plan, for any significant portion of the globe.  War could lay many countries to waste, unable to trade, just as surely as a drought or meteor strike.

In mid-2002, George Bush clearly opted for creating the clamour of war, for the purposes of winning the November 2002 Congressional Elections - and that strategy succeeded.  He is now rapidly looking for a way-out without loss of face, and in the process winning extra electoral Brownie points as a peacemaker.  For his principal objective is to allow the Republican Party, working all the time behind the scenes, to entrench the business lobby ever more deeply in the interstices of American society.

Tony Blair let slip a telling phrase, in his personal apologia last week - "We must not waste this precious period of power.."  And the same is true of George Bush.  For the Republican Party, this is a precious period of power, which they could not have expected to enjoy.  His job is to keep it going.  Every week, every month, sees the behind-the-scenes dismantlement of regulations that are inconvenient for business - this precious period of power must be made to last - see my scepticism of last December - Sweet Lollipop of Power..  But the longer he continues to draw down upon the adrenalin of war, the greater the uncertainties created in the mind of the people, and the greater the threat to consumer confidence.  And if consumer confidence were to be eroded, the way back would be long and tortuous - and he would not be President in November 2004 - for my world-view of the management of uncertainty, see my magnum opus Multiple Differential Uncertainty...

My friends call me absurdly optimistic - but this is neither pessimism nor optimism, rather my observation of the nature of man and of modern society.  My nose tells me that the forces of peaceful materialism will work, through the Stock Markets and collapse of the propensity-to-consume, to procure the avoidance of war, certainly all-out war.  War hysteria may win one Election - but it will never win two.

•  Peace, you see, is good for business.