de defensa<\/em> suivant le texte de Peters, et fermant la marche.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nNous continuons aujourd’hui, quatre plus tard, \u00e0 \u00eatre frapp\u00e9 par la hargne, la volont\u00e9 de puissance pr\u00e9datrice, et aussi ce que nous nommions dans notre texte d’appr\u00e9ciation critique du 10 juillet 1997, le « nihilisme jubilatoire<\/em> » qui se d\u00e9gagent de l’essai du major Peters. Il continue \u00e0 y avoir quelque chose d’effrayant, et sans doute encore plus du point de vue de 2001 avec les \u00e9v\u00e9nements qui se sont produits, de d\u00e9couvrir dans la pens\u00e9e d’un auteur la repr\u00e9sentation de sa propre culture comme « a plague of pleasure<\/em> » destin\u00e9e \u00e0 d\u00e9truire toutes les autres cultures, \u00e0 d\u00e9truire toutes les traditions, toutes les structures stables, c’est-\u00e0-dire destin\u00e9e \u00e0semer le chaos et le d\u00e9sordre sur la plan\u00e8te ; et il s’agit en plus d’une culture dont on annonce avec emphase la sup\u00e9riorit\u00e9 en pr\u00e9cisant in fine<\/em> qu’elle est basse, sans rien pour la distinguer sinon sa puissance d’investissement et de destruction, sans aucune caract\u00e9ristique qualitative ni d’identit\u00e9 ; et la justification en fin de compte d’une telle ambition et d’un tel projet, rien sinon le vertige de suivre un mouvement de destruction parce que ce mouvement existe et qu’il est soi-disant en marche. (Peters ne s’en cache pas une seconde, sur ce dernier point : « American culture is not about the end, but the means, the dynamic process that creates, destroys, and creates anew.<\/em> »)<\/p>\n<\/p>\nLe major Peters ne dissimule pas les nombreuses justifications que certains individus et certaines communaut\u00e9s seraient fond\u00e9s de trouver pour leur haine de l’Am\u00e9rique, si, apr\u00e8s tout, elle agit comme lui-m\u00eame la d\u00e9crit implicitement : « There is a global sense of promises broken, of lies told. Individuals on much of the planet believe they have played by the rules laid down for them (in the breech, they often have not), only to find that some indefinite power has changed those rules.<\/em> » Au-del\u00e0 de ce constat, Peters semblerait conclure, sarcastique et cynique : « And so what<\/em> ?»<\/p>\n<\/p>\nMais c’est assez. Nous laissons la place \u00e0 Peters, puis au commentaire que nous faisions \u00e0 l’\u00e9poque. Simplement, nous ajouterons qu’il n’est pas sûr, apr\u00e8s tout, que le Peters qui publiait cet essai en 1997 soit ou serait tellement satisfait des r\u00e9actions des Am\u00e9ricains apr\u00e8s le 11 septembre, notamment leurs plaintes sur leur propre sort, leurs interrogations incr\u00e9dules (« why do they hate us?<\/em> ») auxquelles Peters avait par avance donn\u00e9 toutes les r\u00e9ponses et justifications possibles. Quant aux diverses r\u00e9alit\u00e9s et virtualit\u00e9s auxquelles la crise actuelle donne tout lieu et opportunit\u00e9 de s’\u00e9tendre et de prolif\u00e9rer, Peters avait \u00e9galement cette r\u00e9ponse pr\u00eate, en fait une explication universelle apr\u00e8s quoi il n’y a plus qu’\u00e0 s’accrocher ferme devant la perspective des temp\u00eates \u00e0 venir : « We live in an age of multiple truths.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n_____________________________________________________<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Constant Conflicts<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
We have entered an age of constant conflict. Information is at once our core commodity and the most destabilizing factor of our time. Until now, history has been a quest to acquire information; today, the challenge lies in managing information. Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar–professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is \u00a0\u00bbnasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited.\u00a0\u00bb The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
We live in an age of multiple truths. He who warns of the \u00a0\u00bbclash of civilizations\u00a0\u00bb is incontestably right; simultaneously, we shall see higher levels of constructive trafficking between civilizations than ever before.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The future is bright–and it is also very dark. More men and women will enjoy health and prosperity than ever before, yet more will live in poverty or tumult, if only because of the ferocity of demographics. There will be more democracy–that deft liberal form of imperialism–and greater popular refusal of democracy. One of the defining bifurcations of the future will be the conflict between information masters and information victims.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In the past, information empowerment was largely a matter of insider and outsider, as elementary as the division of society into the literate and illiterate. While superior information–often embodied in military technology–killed throughout history, its effects tended to be politically decisive but not personally intrusive (once the raping and pillaging were done).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Technology was more apt to batter down the city gates than to change the nature of the city. The rise of the modern West broke the pattern. Whether speaking of the dispossessions and dislocations caused in Europe through the introduction of machine-driven production or elsewhere by the great age of European imperialism, an explosion of disorienting information intruded ever further into<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Braudel’s \u00a0\u00bbstructures of everyday life.\u00a0\u00bb Historically, ignorance was bliss. Today, ignorance is no longer possible, only error.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The contemporary expansion of available information is immeasurable, uncontainable, and destructive to individuals and entire cultures unable to master it. The radical fundamentalists–the bomber in Jerusalem or Oklahoma City, the moral terrorist on the right or the dictatorial multiculturalist on the left–are all brothers and sisters, all threatened by change, terrified of the future, and alienated by information they cannot reconcile with their lives or ambitions. They ache to return to a golden age that never existed, or to create a paradise of their own restrictive design. They no longer understand the world, and their fear is volatile.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Information destroys traditional jobs and traditional cultures; it seduces, betrays, yet remains invulnerable. How can you counterattack the information others have turned upon you? There is no effective option other than competitive performance. For those individuals and cultures that cannot join or compete with our information empire, there is only inevitable failure (of note, the internet is to the techno-capable disaffected what the United Nations is to marginal states: it offers the illusion of empowerment and community). The attempt of the Iranian mullahs to secede from modernity has failed, although a turbaned corpse still stumbles about the neighborhood. Information, from the internet to rock videos, will not be contained, and fundamentalism cannot control its children. Our victims volunteer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
These noncompetitive cultures, such as that of Arabo-Persian Islam or the rejectionist segment of our own population, are enraged. Their cultures are under assault; their cherished values have proven dysfunctional, and the successful move on without them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The laid-off blue-collar worker in America and the Taliban militiaman in Afghanistan are brothers in suffering.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It is a truism that throughout much of the 20th century the income gap between top and bottom narrowed, whether we speak of individuals, countries, or in some cases continents. Further, individuals or countries could \u00a0\u00bbmake it\u00a0\u00bb on sheer muscle power and the will to apply it. You could work harder than your neighbor and win in the marketplace. There was a rough justice in it, and it offered near-ecumenical hope. That model is dead. Today, there is a growing excess of muscle power in an age of labor-saving machines and methods. In our own country, we have seen blue-collar unions move from center stage to near-irrelevance. The trend will not reverse. At the same time, expectations have increased dramatically. There is a global sense of promises broken, of lies told. Individuals on much of the planet believe they have played by the rules laid down for them (in the breech, they often have not), only to find that some indefinite power has changed those rules overnight. The American who graduated from high school in the 1960s expected a good job that would allow his family security and reasonably increasing prosperity. For many such Americans, the world has collapsed, even as the media tease them with images of an ever-richer, brighter, fun world from which they are excluded.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
These discarded citizens sense that their government is no longer about them, but only about the privileged. Some seek the solace of explicit religion. Most remain law-abiding, hard-working citizens. Some do not.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The foreign twin is the Islamic, or sub-Saharan African, or Mexican university graduate who faces a teetering government, joblessness, exclusion from the profits of the corruption distorting his society, marriage in poverty or the impossibility of marriage, and a deluge of information telling him (exaggeratedly and dishonestly) how well the West lives. In this age of television-series franchising, videos, and satellite dishes, this young, embittered male gets his skewed view of us from reruns of Dynasty and Dallas, or from satellite links beaming down Baywatch, sources we dismiss too quickly as laughable and unworthy of serious consideration as factors influencing world affairs. But their effect is destructive beyond the power of words to describe. Hollywood goes where Harvard never penetrated, and the foreigner, unable to touch the reality of America, is touched by America’s irresponsible fantasies of itself; he sees a devilishly enchanting, bluntly sexual, terrifying world from which he is excluded, a world of wealth he can judge only in terms of his own poverty.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Most citizens of the globe are not economists; they perceive wealth as inelastic, its possession a zero-sum game. If decadent America (as seen on the screen) is so fabulously rich, it can only be because America has looted one’s own impoverished group or country or region. Adding to the cognitive dissonance, the discarded foreigner cannot square the perceived moral corruption of America, a travesty of all he has been told to value, with America’s enduring punitive power. How could a nation whose women are \u00a0\u00bball harlots\u00a0\u00bb stage Desert Storm? It is an offense to God, and there must be a demonic answer, a substance of conspiracies and oppression in which his own secular, disappointing elite is complicit. This discarded foreigner’s desire may be to attack the \u00a0\u00bbGreat Satan America,\u00a0\u00bb but America is far away (for now), so he acts violently in his own neighborhood. He will accept no personal guilt for his failure, nor can he bear the possibility that his culture \u00a0\u00bbdoesn’t work.\u00a0\u00bb The blame lies ever elsewhere. The cult of victimization is becoming a universal phenomenon, and it is a source of dynamic hatreds.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It is fashionable among world intellectual elites to decry \u00a0\u00bbAmerican culture,\u00a0\u00bb with our domestic critics among the loudest in complaint. But traditional intellectual elites are of shrinking relevance, replaced by cognitive-practical elites–figures such as Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Madonna, or our most successful politicians–human beings who can recognize or create popular appetites, recreating themselves as necessary. Contemporary American culture is the most powerful in history, and the most destructive of competitor cultures.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
While some other cultures, such as those of East Asia, appear strong enough to survive the onslaught by adaptive behaviors, most are not. The genius, the secret weapon, of American culture is the essence that the elites despise: ours is the first genuine people’s culture. It stresses comfort and convenience–ease–and it generates pleasure for the masses. We are Karl Marx’s dream, and his nightmare.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Secular and religious revolutionaries in our century have made the identical mistake, imagining that the workers of the world or the faithful just can’t wait to go home at night to study Marx or the Koran. Well, Joe Sixpack, Ivan Tipichni, and Ali Quat would rather \u00a0\u00bbBaywatch.\u00a0\u00bb America has figured it out, and we are brilliant at operationalizing our knowledge, and our cultural power will hinder even those cultures we do not undermine. There is no \u00a0\u00bbpeer competitor\u00a0\u00bb in the cultural (or military) department. Our cultural empire has the addicted–men and women everywhere–clamoring for more. And they pay for the privilege of their disillusionment.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
American culture is criticized for its impermanence, its \u00a0\u00bbdisposable\u00a0\u00bb products. But therein lies its strength. All previous cultures sought ideal achievement which, once reached, might endure in static perfection.. If our works are transient, then so are life’s greatest gifts–passion, beauty, the quality of light on a winter afternoon, even life itself. American culture is alive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This vividness, this vitality, is reflected in our military; we do not expect to achieve ultimate solutions, only constant improvement. All previous cultures, general and military, have sought to achieve an ideal form of life and then fix it in cement. Americans, in and out of uniform, have always embraced change (though many individuals have not, and their conservatism has acted as a healthy brake on our national excesses). American culture is the culture of the unafraid.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ours is also the first culture that aims to include rather than exclude. The films most despised by the intellectual elite–those that feature extreme violence and to-the-victors-the-spoils sex–are our most popular cultural weapon, bought or bootlegged nearly everywhere. American action films, often in dreadful copies, are available from the Upper Amazon to Mandalay. They are even more popular than our music, because they are easier to understand. The action films of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger or Chuck Norris rely on visual narratives that do not require dialog for a basic understanding. They deal at the level of universal myth, of pre-text, celebrating the most fundamental impulses (although we have yet to produce a film as violent and cruel as the Iliad). They feature a hero, a villain, a woman to be defended or won–and violence and sex. Complain until doomsday; it sells. The enduring popularity abroad of the shopworn Rambo series tells us far more about humanity than does a library full of scholarly analysis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
When we speak of a global information revolution, the effect of video images is more immediate and intense than that of computers. Image trumps text in the mass psyche, and computers remain a textual outgrowth, demanding high-order skills: computers demarcate the domain of the privileged. We use technology to expand our wealth, power, and opportunities. The rest get high on pop culture. If religion is the opium of the people, video is their crack cocaine. When we and they collide, they shock us with violence, but, statistically, we win.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As more and more human beings are overwhelmed by information, or dispossessed by the effects of information-based technologies, there will be more violence. Information victims will often see no other resort. As work becomes more cerebral, those who fail to find a place will respond by rejecting reason. We will see countries and continents divide between rich and poor in a reversal of 20th-century economic trends. Developing countries will not be able to depend on physical production industries, because there will always be another country willing to work cheaper. The have-nots will hate and strive to attack the haves. And we in the United States will continue to be perceived as the ultimate haves. States will struggle for advantage or revenge as their societies boil. Beyond traditional crime, terrorism will be the most common form of violence, but transnational criminality, civil strife, secessions, border conflicts, and conventional wars will continue to plague the world, albeit with the \u00a0\u00bblesser\u00a0\u00bb conflicts statistically dominant. In defense of its interests, its citizens, its allies, or its clients, the United States will be required to intervene in some of these contests. We will win militarily whenever we have the guts for it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
We are building an information-based military to do that killing. There will still be plenty of muscle power required, but much of our military art will consist in knowing more about the enemy than he knows about himself, manipulating data for effectiveness and efficiency, and denying similar advantages to our opponents. This will involve a good bit of technology, but the relevant systems will not be the budget vampires, such as manned bombers and attack submarines, that we continue to buy through inertia, emotional attachment, and the lobbying power of the defense industry. Our most important technologies will be those that support soldiers and Marines on the ground, that facilitate command decisions, and that enable us to kill accurately and survive amid clutter (such as multidimensional urban battlefields). The only imaginable use for most of our submarine fleet will be to strip out the weapons, dock them tight, and turn the boats into low-income housing. There will be no justification for billion-dollar bombers at all.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For a generation, and probably much longer, we will face no military peer competitor. Our enemies will challenge us by other means. The violent actors we encounter often will be small, hostile parties possessed of unexpected, incisive capabilities or simply of a stunning will to violence (or both). Renegade elites, not foreign fleets, should worry us. The urbanization of the global landscape is a greater threat to our operations than any extant or foreseeable military system. We will not deal with wars of Realpolitik, but with conflicts spawned of collective emotions, sub-state interests, and systemic collapse. Hatred, jealousy, and greed–emotions rather than strategy–will set the terms of the struggles.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
We will survive and win any conflict short of a cataclysmic use of weapons of mass destruction. But the constant conflicts in which we selectively intervene will be as miserable as any other form of warfare for the soldiers and Marines engaged. The bayonet will still be relevant; however, informational superiority incisively employed should both sharpen that bayonet and permit us to defeat some–but never all–of our enemies outside of bayonet range. Our informational advantage over every other country and culture will be so enormous that our greatest battlefield challenge will be harnessing its power. Our potential national weakness will be the failure to maintain the moral and raw physical strength to thrust that bayonet into an enemy’s heart.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Pilots and skippers, as well as defense executives, demand threat models that portray country X or Y as overtaking the military capability of the United States in 10 to 20 years. Forget it. Our military power is culturally based. They cannot rival us without becoming us. Wise competitors will not even attempt to defeat us on our terms; rather, they will seek to shift the playing field away from military confrontations or turn to terrorism and nontraditional forms of assault on our national integrity. Only the foolish will fight fair.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The threat models stitched together from dead parts to convince Congress that the Russians are only taking a deep breath or that the Chinese are only a few miles off the coast of California uniformly assume that while foreign powers make all the right decisions, analyze every trend correctly, and continue to achieve higher and higher economic growth rates, the United States will take a nap. On the contrary. Beyond the Beltway, the United States is wide awake and leading a second \u00a0\u00bbindustrial\u00a0\u00bb revolution that will make the original industrial revolution that climaxed the great age of imperialism look like a rehearsal by amateurs. Only the United States has the synthetic ability, the supportive laws, and the cultural agility to remain at the cutting edge of wealth creation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Not long ago, the Russians were going to overtake us. Then it was oil-wealthy Arabs, then the Japanese. One prize-winning economist even calculated that fuddy-duddy Europe would dominate the next century (a sure prescription for boredom, were it true). Now the Chinese are our nemesis. No doubt our industrial-strength Cassandras will soon find a reason to fear the Galapagos. In the meantime, the average American can look forward to a longer life-span, a secure retirement, and free membership in the most triumphant culture in history. For the majority of our citizens, our vulgar, near-chaotic, marvelous culture is the greatest engine of positive change in history.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Freedom works<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
In the military sphere, it will be impossible to rival or even approach the capabilities of our information-based force because it is so profoundly an outgrowth of our culture. Our information-based Army will employ many marvelous tools, but the core of the force will still be the soldier, not the machine, and our soldiers will have skills other cultures will be unable to replicate. Intelligence analysts, fleeing human complexity, like to project enemy capabilities based upon the systems a potential opponent might acquire. But buying or building stuff is not enough. It didn’t work for Saddam Hussein, and it won’t work for Beijing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The complex human-machine interface developing in the US military will be impossible to duplicate abroad because no other state will be able to come from behind to equal the informational dexterity of our officers and soldiers. For all the complaints–in many respects justified–about our public school systems, the holistic and synergistic nature of education in our society and culture is imparting to tomorrow’s soldiers and Marines a second-nature grasp of technology and the ability to sort and assimilate vast amounts of competitive data that no other population will achieve. The informational dexterity of our average middle-class kid is terrifying to anyone born before 1970. Our computer kids function at a level foreign elites barely manage, and this has as much to do with television commercials, CD-ROMs, and grotesque video games as it does with the classroom. We are outgrowing our 19th-century model education system as surely as we have outgrown the manned bomber. In the meantime, our children are undergoing a process of Darwinian selection in coping with the information deluge that is drowning many of their parents.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
These kids are going to make mean techno-warriors. We just have to make sure they can do push-ups, too.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There is a useful German expression, \u00a0\u00bbDie Lage war immer so ernst,\u00a0\u00bb that translates very freely as \u00a0\u00bbThe sky has always been falling.\u00a0\u00bb Despite our relish of fears and complaints, we live in the most powerful, robust culture on earth. Its discontinuities and contradictions are often its strengths. We are incapable of five-year plans, and it is a saving grace. Our fluidity, in consumption, technology, and on the battlefield, is a strength our nearest competitors cannot approach. We move very fast. At our military best, we become Nathan Bedford Forrest riding a microchip. But when we insist on buying into extended procurement contracts for unaffordable, neo-traditional weapon systems, we squander our brilliant flexibility.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Today, we are locking-in already obsolescent defense purchases that will not begin to rise to the human capabilities of tomorrow’s service members. In 2015 and beyond, we will be receiving systems into our inventory that will be no more relevant than Sherman tanks and prop-driven bombers would be today. We are not providing for tomorrow’s military, we are paralyzing it. We will have the most humanly agile force on earth, and we are doing our best to shut it inside a technological straight-jacket.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There is no \u00a0\u00bbbig threat\u00a0\u00bb out there. There’s none on the horizon, either. Instead of preparing for the Battle of Midway, we need to focus on the constant conflicts of richly varying description that will challenge us–and kill us–at home and abroad. There are plenty of threats, but the beloved dinosaurs are dead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
We will outcreate, outproduce and, when need be, outfight the rest of the world. We can out-think them, too. But our military must not embark upon the 21st century clinging to 20th-century models. Our national appetite for information and our sophistication in handling it will enable us to outlast and outperform all hierarchical cultures, information-controlling societies, and rejectionist states. The skills necessary to this newest information age can be acquired only beginning in childhood and in complete immersion. Societies that fear or otherwise cannot manage the free flow of information simply will not be competitive. They might master the technological wherewithal to watch the videos, but we will be writing the scripts, producing them, and collecting the royalties. Our creativity is devastating. If we insist on a \u00a0\u00bbproven\u00a0\u00bb approach to military affairs, we will be throwing away our greatest national advantage. We need to make sure our information-based military is based on the right information.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Facing this environment of constant conflict amid information proliferation, the military response has been to coin a new catchphrase–information warfare–and then duck. Although there has been plenty of chatter about information warfare, most of it has been as helpful and incisive as a discussion of sex among junior high school boys; everybody wants to pose, but nobody has a clue. We have hemorrhaged defense dollars to contractors perfectly willing to tell us what we already knew. Studies study other studies. For now, we have decided that information warfare is a matter of technology, which is akin to believing that your stereo system is more important to music than the musicians.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Fear not. We are already masters of information warfare, and we shall get around to defining it eventually. Let the scholars fuss. When it comes to our technology (and all technology is military technology) the Russians can’t produce it, the Arabs can’t afford it, and no one can steal it fast enough to make a difference. Our great bogeyman, China, is achieving remarkable growth rates because the Chinese belatedly entered the industrial revolution with a billion-plus population. Without a culture-shattering reappreciation of the role of free information in a society, China will peak well below our level of achievement.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Yes, foreign cultures are reasserting their threatened identities–usually with marginal, if any, success–and yes, they are attempting to escape our influence. But American culture is infectious, a plague of pleasure, and you don’t have to die of it to be hindered or crippled in your integrity or competitiveness. The very struggle of other cultures to resist American cultural intrusion fatefully diverts their energies from the pursuit of the future. We should not fear the advent of fundamentalist or rejectionist regimes. They are simply guaranteeing their peoples’ failure, while further increasing our relative strength.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It remains difficult, of course, for military leaders to conceive of warfare, informational or otherwise, in such broad terms. But Hollywood is \u00a0\u00bbpreparing the battlefield,\u00a0\u00bb and burgers precede bullets. The flag follows trade. Despite our declaration of defeat in the face of battlefield victory in Mogadishu, the image of US power and the US military around the world is not only a deterrent, but a psychological warfare tool that is constantly at work in the minds of real or potential opponents. Saddam swaggered, but the image of the US military crippled the Iraqi army in the field, doing more to soften them up for our ground assault than did tossing bombs into the sand. Everybody is afraid of us. They really believe we can do all the stuff in the movies. If the Trojans \u00a0\u00bbsaw\u00a0\u00bb Athena guiding the Greeks in battle, then the Iraqis saw Luke Skywalker precede McCaffrey’s tanks. Our unconscious alliance of culture with killing power is a combat multiplier no government, including our own, could design or afford. We are magic. And we’re going to keep it that way.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Within our formal military, we have been moving into information warfare for decades. Our attitude toward data acquisition and, especially, data dissemination within the force has broken with global military tradition, in which empowering information was reserved for the upper echelons. While our military is vertically responsible, as it must be, it is informationally democratic. Our ability to decentralize information and appropriate decisionmaking authority is a revolutionary breakthrough (the over-praised pre-1945 Germans decentralized some tactical decisionmaking, but only within carefully regulated guidelines–and they could not enable the process with sufficient information dissemination).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
No military establishment has ever placed such trust in lieutenants, sergeants, and privates, nor are our touted future competitors likely to do so. In fact, there has been an even greater diffusion of power within our military (in the Army and Marines) than most of us realize. Pragmatic behavior daily subverts antiquated structures, such as divisions and traditional staffs. We keep the old names, but the behaviors are changing. What, other than its flag, does the division of 1997 have in common with the division of World War II? Even as traditionalists resist the reformation of the force, the \u00a0\u00bbanarchy\u00a0\u00bb of lieutenants is shaping the Army of tomorrow. Battalion commanders do not understand what their lieutenants are up to, and generals would not be able to sleep at night if they knew what the battalion commanders know. While we argue about change, the Army is changing itself. The Marines are doing a brilliant job of reinventing themselves while retaining their essence, and their achievement should be a welcome challenge to the Army. The Air Force and Navy remain rigidly hierarchical.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Culture is fate. Countries, clans, military services, and individual soldiers are products of their respective cultures, and they are either empowered or imprisoned. The majority of the world’s inhabitants are prisoners of their cultures, and they will rage against inadequacies they cannot admit, cannot bear, and cannot escape. The current chest-thumping of some Asian leaders about the degeneracy, weakness, and vulnerability of American culture is reminiscent of nothing so much as of the ranting of Japanese militarists on the eve of the Pacific War. I do not suggest that any of those Asian leaders intend to attack us, only that they are wrong. Liberty always looks like weakness to those who fear it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In the wake of the Soviet collapse, some commentators declared that freedom had won and history was at an end. But freedom will always find enemies. The problem with freedom is that it’s just too damned free for tyrants, whether they be dictators, racial or religious supremacists, or abusive husbands. Freedom challenges existing orders, exposes bigotry, opens opportunity, and demands personal responsibility. What could be more threatening to traditional cultures? The advent of this new information age has opened a fresh chapter in the human struggle for, and with, freedom. It will be a bloody chapter, with plenty of computer-smashing and head-bashing. The number one priority of non-Western governments in the coming decades will be to find acceptable terms for the flow of information within their societies. They will uniformly err on the side of conservatism–informational corruption–and will cripple their competitiveness in doing so. Their failure is programmed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The next century will indeed be American, but it will also be troubled. We will find ourselves in constant conflict, much of it violent. The United States Army is going to add a lot of battle streamers to its flag. We will wage information warfare, but we will fight with infantry. And we will always surprise those critics, domestic and foreign, who predict our decline.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ralph Peters, Parameters, Summer 1997 <\/em><\/h4>\n<\/p>\nMajor (P) Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for future warfare. Prior to becoming a Foreign Area Officer for Eurasia, he served exclusively at the tactical level. He is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College and holds a master’s degree in international relations. Over the past several years, his professional and personal research travels have taken Major Peters to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Pakistan, Turkey, Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as the countries of the Andean Ridge. He has published widely on military and international concerns. His sixth novel, Twilight of Heroes, was recently released by Avon Books. This is his eighth article for Parameters. The author wishes to acknowledge the importance to this essay of discussions with Lieutenant Colonels Gordon Thompson and Lonnie Henley, both US Army officers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n_____________________________________________________<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Le visage (jubilant) du Barbare<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Cet article n’est pas un expos\u00e9 de doctrine. Il ne refl\u00e8te pas une position officielle ni rien de semblable. Cela n’emp\u00eache, Constant Conflict<\/em> est \u00e9crit par le major Peters qui est un officier de l’U.S. Army, affect\u00e9 au bureau du Vice Chief of Staff, Intelligence, et il est publi\u00e9 dans Parameters<\/em>, la revue doctrinale de l’U.S. Army (1). [On pourra peut-\u00eatre trouver \u00e9galement une explication de certains aspects de cet article dans le fait que Ralph Peters est aussi auteur de best sellers<\/em> d’un style assez comparable (genre war thriller<\/em>) \u00e0 celui de Tom Clancy ; Twilight of Heroes<\/em>, publi\u00e9 chez Avon Books, est son sixi\u00e8me ouvrage. Mais Peters a aussi la charge plus s\u00e9rieuse, \u00e0 l’Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, de la prospective sur les guerres futures (future warfare<\/em>).] En un mot : si Constant Conflict<\/em> n’est pas une proclamation officielle, c’est au moins du s\u00e9rieux, m\u00eame \u00e9crit dans le cadre d’une r\u00e9flexion laiss\u00e9e volontairement libre sur l’avenir des conflits et l’avenir des forces arm\u00e9es des États-Unis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nSi l’on prend toutes ces pr\u00e9cautions, c’est parce que Constant Conflict<\/em> est une pi\u00e8ce de litt\u00e9rature prospective qu’on pourrait qualifier d’objectivement effrayante. Ce texte a des aspects absurdes et hyst\u00e9riques, et en m\u00eame temps d’autres qui sont froids, r\u00e9alistes et implacables. Il dit des choses qu’on jugerait insens\u00e9es et perverses, et en m\u00eame temps il nous avertit de la possibilit\u00e9 de quelques sinistres r\u00e9alit\u00e9s qui sont peut-\u00eatre \u00e0 venir.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nFinalement, il l\u00e8ve le voile de fa\u00e7on crue et sans mani\u00e8re inutile sur l’appr\u00e9ciation que se font certains de cette nouvelle forme de guerre qui est d\u00e9j\u00e0 la vraie guerre d’aujourd’hui et certainement celle de demain, et qui, par certains c\u00f4t\u00e9s qui paraissent de plus en plus imp\u00e9ratifs, pourrait \u00eatre la guerre ultime de l’humanit\u00e9 aussi sûrement et beaucoup moins th\u00e9oriquement que la grande guerre nucl\u00e9aire que nous ne fîmes jamais. Il s’agit de la guerre culturelle.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Constant Conflict<\/em> d\u00e9crit ce que Peters juge in\u00e9luctable : la victoire de l’offensive culturelle am\u00e9ricaine, mais avec toute l’ambigu\u00eft\u00e9 possible autour de ce qualificatif de \u00ab\u00a0culturelle\u00a0\u00bb. La r\u00e9flexion est elle-m\u00eame baign\u00e9e par cette ambigu\u00eft\u00e9 que nourrit le goût du paradoxe : « L’avenir est brillant, <\/em>\u00e9crit l’auteur, – et il est aussi tr\u00e8s sombre.<\/em> » La r\u00e9flexion est un hymne \u00e0la libert\u00e9 de l’information, \u00e0 l’expansion sans frein de la culture et de la d\u00e9mocratie, sur un ton et dans des conditions dont l’aspect totalitaire implicite est d’une permanence stup\u00e9fiante (l’auteur ne donne-t-il pas, en passant et entre tirets, comme sans y toucher, cette d\u00e9finition de la d\u00e9mocratie : « cette forme lib\u00e9rale habile de l’imp\u00e9rialisme<\/em> » ?). Enfin, il y a dans ce texte, \u00e0 la fois, une telle jubilation et une telle absence de perspective cr\u00e9atrice et constructive qu’on est conduit \u00e0 forger une expression pour le qualifier, – et ce serait : un nihilisme jubilatoire ; jamais nihilisme plus entier et proclam\u00e9, jamais jubilation plus grande et affich\u00e9 de promouvoir ce nihilisme. On pourrait alors croire que nous ne sommes plus tr\u00e8s loin du cr\u00e9puscule sombre de la pens\u00e9e en tant que force constructrice et cr\u00e9atrice, instrument\u00e9 par l’imp\u00e9rialisme technologique et culturel le plus d\u00e9vastateur. C’est pourquoi nous croyons pouvoir avancer que, dans ce cas hypoth\u00e9tique qu’\u00e9voque Peters, les Barbares seraient l\u00e0 comme jamais il n’y eut Barbares dans l’Histoire qui en fourmille pourtant, Barbares d’une race nouvelle, \u00e0 la fois disposant d’une barbarie infiniment sophistiqu\u00e9e et clamant haut et fort la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 d’appliquer cette barbarie au monde, comme \u00e7a, sans but, sans dessein, parce que le poids entraîne la chose et doit soumettre la civilisation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nA c\u00f4t\u00e9 de tout cela, et nous ferions bien d’y pr\u00eater la plus extr\u00eame attention, ce texte dit sans fard quelques v\u00e9rit\u00e9s d’une grande importance. Il montre, \u00e9galement sans fard, quelques aspects fondamentaux de l’Am\u00e9rique d’aujourd’hui.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
La culture envisag\u00e9e comme « une peste de plaisir<\/em> »<\/h3>\n<\/p>\nIl s’agit d’un hymne au triomphe de la \u00ab\u00a0culture\u00a0\u00bb am\u00e9ricaine, ou plut\u00f4t disons : la culture am\u00e9ricanis\u00e9e. « La culture contemporaine am\u00e9ricaine est la plus puissante dans l’histoire, et la plus destructrice parmi les cultures en comp\u00e9tition,<\/em> » \u00e9crit Peters. Retenons pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment ce mot : « destructrice,<\/em> » car il est partout question de mort dans ce texte, en filigrane. Autrement dit, « la culture am\u00e9ricaine est contagieuse, c’est une peste de plaisir.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\nMais il s’agit bien de cette culture \u00ab\u00a0am\u00e9ricanis\u00e9e\u00a0\u00bb que nous distinguons, car nous pr\u00e9f\u00e9rons imp\u00e9rativement ce qualificatif \u00e0 celui d’« am\u00e9ricain<\/em> » qu’emploie l’auteur. Celui-ci ne se dissimule rien \u00e0 ce propos, et c’est bien un des aspects frappants de Constant Conflict<\/em>. Il se pourrait bien qu’il s’agisse l\u00e0 de la premi\u00e8re fois qu’un texte am\u00e9ricain pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 dans un cadre si \u00ab\u00a0s\u00e9rieux\u00a0\u00bb et faisant l’apologie de la puissance am\u00e9ricaine sacrifie dans ses perspectives une bonne partie des Am\u00e9ricains en les rejetant dans le camp de l'\u00a0\u00bbEnnemi\u00a0\u00bb. « Pour nombre de ces Am\u00e9ricains<\/em> [qui furent dipl\u00f4m\u00e9s dans les ann\u00e9es soixante], le monde a \u00e9clat\u00e9, m\u00eame si les m\u00e9dias les tourmentent avec l’image d’un monde d’amusement, toujours plus riche, toujours plus brillant, et dont ils sont exclus. Ces citoyens exclus sentent que leur gouvernement ne les prot\u00e8ge plus, mais prot\u00e8ge les privil\u00e9gi\u00e9s.<\/em> » D\u00e9crivant l’assaut de la culture am\u00e9ricanis\u00e9e, Peters d\u00e9signe clairement les cibles : « Les cultures non-comp\u00e9titives, comme celle de l’Islam arabo-persique ou de la fraction rejectionniste de notre propre population <\/em>[…] sont attaqu\u00e9es ; les valeurs <\/em>[qu’elles] ch\u00e9rissent se r\u00e9v\u00e8lent impuissantes, et celles qui triomphent avancent sans <\/em>[elles]. Le cadre moyen am\u00e9ricain et le milicien taliban d’Afghanistan sont des fr\u00e8res de souffrance.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\nAinsi Constant Conflict<\/em> nous apparaît-il comme plus significatif, comme \u00e0 visage d\u00e9couvert dirions-nous, et c’est l\u00e0 toute sa vertu p\u00e9dagogique a contrario<\/em> : ce n’est pas l’Am\u00e9rique selon l’entendement commun qui attaque, mais bien un syst\u00e8me qu’a secr\u00e9t\u00e9 l’Am\u00e9rique et qui se retourne contre elle de la m\u00eame fa\u00e7on qu’il agresse le reste.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nLes moyens de l’attaque sont ceux d’un flot d’information qui noie tout, emporte tout ; plus pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment, d’un flot d’information \u00ab\u00a0subversives\u00a0\u00bb … L\u00e0 se trouve encore un point capital : la subversion implicite applaudie par Peters n’est pas d’essence id\u00e9ologique, par exemple pour convaincre de la sup\u00e9riorit\u00e9 am\u00e9ricaine en tant que force historique relative, mais d’essence vitale. Peters applaudit la puissance destructrice de la soi-disant \u00ab\u00a0culture am\u00e9ricaine\u00a0\u00bb. Parlant de \u00ab\u00a0culture\u00a0\u00bb, il ne parle pas de l’excellence am\u00e9ricaine l\u00e0 où il y en a ; il ne parle pas du cin\u00e9ma d’auteur (Tarentino, les fr\u00e8res Coen, Scorcese, etc.) ; il ne parle pas de la litt\u00e9rature, d’Ellroy, de Mailer, de Gore Vidal, – et d’ailleurs, pour tout cela nous sommes rassur\u00e9s : cette culture-l\u00e0 ne peut pas nous faire de mal parce qu’elle est humaniste et respecte notre identit\u00e9 comme nous respectons la sienne. Non, Peters parle de Dynasty<\/em>, de Dallas<\/em>, de Rambo<\/em> dans ceci que toutes ces choses ont une \u00e9vidente \u00ab\u00a0vertu\u00a0\u00bb d’abrutissement (comme on parle de « la vertu dormitive<\/em> » de l’opium). Il n’est m\u00eame plus besoin de parler : « Les films d’actions de Stallone, de Schwarzenegger ou de Chuck Norris reposent sur une narration visuelle qui ne n\u00e9cessite aucun dialogue pour la compr\u00e9hension<\/em> » (non plus qu’ils ne requi\u00e8rent plus d’Am\u00e9ricains stricto sensu<\/em>, comme avant on applaudissait John Wayne comme l’arch\u00e9type du h\u00e9ros am\u00e9ricain : les Schwarzenegger et les Van Damme sont Autrichien et Belge et ils pourraient \u00eatre aussi bien Zoulou et Chinois). Nous sommes au niveau d’une subversion primaire et sans objet, celle qui d\u00e9truit aveugl\u00e9ment. A ce propos, Peters nous livre le secret final, la d\u00e9finition m\u00eame du nihilisme jubilatoire qui anime cette force qu’il d\u00e9crit : tout cela n’a aucun but, et par cons\u00e9quent aucun but id\u00e9ologique, puisque « la culture am\u00e9ricaine ne concerne pas les fins mais les moyens, le processus dynamique qui cr\u00e9e, d\u00e9truit et cr\u00e9e du nouveau.<\/em> » Et Peters proclame (c’est lui qui souligne) : « La culture am\u00e9ricaine est vivante.<\/em><\/strong> » On peut se demander si elle est la vie pour autant.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nPeters n’oublie pas qu’il est soldat et qu’il travaille au Pentagone. Aussi assigne-t-il \u00e0 l’arm\u00e9e un r\u00f4le qui assure \u00e0 celle-ci la plus compl\u00e8te p\u00e9rennit\u00e9 (et les budgets qui vont avec) pour les d\u00e9cennies \u00e0 venir au long du XXIe si\u00e8cle : « Le r\u00f4le de facto des forces arm\u00e9es am\u00e9ricaines sera de tenir le monde adapt\u00e9 \u00e0 <\/em>[la p\u00e9n\u00e9tration de] notre \u00e9conomie et ouvert aux assauts de notre culture.<\/em> » Comment ? Restituons l’anglo-am\u00e9ricain original pour n’en pas trahir le sens, lequel vaut son pesant de mitraille : « To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.<\/em> » Et ainsi Peters d\u00e9crit-il l’avenir brillant des forces arm\u00e9es am\u00e9ricaines, mais dans des termes qui parfois d\u00e9voilent les faiblesses cach\u00e9es d’un Syst\u00e8me qui s’est totalement investi dans les moyens sans plus se pr\u00e9occuper des fins, c’est-\u00e0-dire de l’esprit des choses : « Nous gagnerons militairement quand nous en aurons le cran. <\/em>[…] Notre faiblesse nationale potentielle sera l’incapacit\u00e9 de maintenir le moral et la force physique brute pour enfoncer la ba\u00efonnette dans le coeur de l’ennemi.<\/em> » Le r\u00eave de Peters pour les forces arm\u00e9es contraste \u00e9trangement avec les r\u00e9alit\u00e9s militaires am\u00e9ricaines : « A notre meilleur niveau militaire, nous devenons un Nathan Bedford Forrest chevauchant une \u00ab\u00a0puce\u00a0\u00bb \u00e9lectronique.<\/em> » [Forrest, g\u00e9n\u00e9ral sudiste et fondateur du Ku Klux Klan<\/em> premi\u00e8re mani\u00e8re, \u00e9tait c\u00e9l\u00e8bre pendant la guerre de S\u00e9cession par ses raids tr\u00e8s rapides sur les arri\u00e8res de l’ennemi, effectu\u00e9s sans logistique, vivant sur le pays qu’il traversait, utilisant comme atouts essentiels la l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9, la vitesse et la surprise : il n’est pas sûr qu’on d\u00e9crive l\u00e0 l’actuelle U.S. Army, où chaque combattant doit \u00eatre \u00ab\u00a0doubl\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb par deux ou trois sp\u00e9cialistes de la logistique, où la 1\u00e8re Division blind\u00e9e met pr\u00e8s de trois semaines pour traverser la rivi\u00e8re Selva, \u00e0 la fronti\u00e8re de la Bosnie en d\u00e9cembre 1995, pour aller prendre ses quartiers de peace-keeping<\/em>.]<\/p>\n<\/p>\nN\u00e9anmoins, tout se terminera bien dans l’apocalypse habituelle, comme l’indique la non moins habituelle incantation : « Notre alliance inconsciente de la culture avec la puissance de tuer est un multiplicateur de la capacit\u00e9 de combattre qu’aucun gouvernement, y compris le n\u00f4tre, ne pourrait concevoir ou acheter. Nous sommes magiques. Et nous allons faire en sorte que cela continue.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\nUne psychanalyse de la neurasth\u00e9nie am\u00e9ricaine<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
Avec ce « [N]ous sommes magiques »<\/em>, r\u00e9sonnent des accents d’autres temps. Il y a dans la litt\u00e9rature, dans le \u00ab\u00a0style\u00a0\u00bb de Peters, dans sa fi\u00e8vre parfois fortement inqui\u00e9tante, une forme qui rappelle nombre d’\u00e9crits, et d’une fa\u00e7on plus g\u00e9n\u00e9rale l’atmosph\u00e8re des ann\u00e9es vingt aux États-Unis. Ce n’est d’ailleurs pas propre au seul Peters, et l’on a d\u00e9j\u00e0 relev\u00e9 ce ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne \u00e0 propos d’autres \u00e9v\u00e9nements am\u00e9ricains ces derniers mois (2).<\/p>\n<\/p>\nPour comparaison, nous citons un extrait d’un livre (publi\u00e9 en 1931) bien illustratif de la p\u00e9riode (3), \u00e9galement sur l’irr\u00e9sistible offensive am\u00e9ricaine. « [L’Am\u00e9rique] a le sentiment de la victoire. Elle sent \u00ab\u00a0son heure\u00a0\u00bb arriver. Les autres pays le croient aussi. L’am\u00e9ricanisation de l’Europe et du monde avance. Les nations sont fascin\u00e9es par l’\u00e9clat du vainqueur, parfois tout en le d\u00e9testant. Les Am\u00e9ricains ne doutent de rien. Ils sont sûrs d’\u00eatre le peuple \u00e9lu. Nous appelons notre pays \u00ab\u00a0God’s country\u00a0\u00bb, le pays de Dieu. Les affaires sont pour nous comme une religion dont nos dirigeants sont les pr\u00eatres. <\/em>[…] Trop sages pour essayer de gouverner le monde, nous nous contenterons de le poss\u00e9der. Rien ne nous arr\u00eatera jusqu’au jour où le coeur m\u00eame de notre empire financier tombera en d\u00e9cr\u00e9pitude, comme dans tous les empires. Naturellement, la supr\u00e9matie am\u00e9ricaine sur le monde est une \u00e9ventualit\u00e9 assez peu plaisante \u00e0envisager <\/em>[…] [A]pr\u00e8s tout, notre supr\u00e9matie ne sera pas pire que celles qui l’ont pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9e. Nos armes sont l’argent et les machines. Les autres nations en veulent. Notre mat\u00e9rialisme vaut le leur. C’est pourquoi notre triomphe est si facile et si in\u00e9vitable.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\nIci, nous tirerons une premi\u00e8re conclusion, qui place d\u00e9j\u00e0 les gesticulations de Peters dans une perspective historique typiquement am\u00e9ricaine : ce formidable besoin de conqu\u00eate \u00e0 fort caract\u00e8re nihiliste, cette affirmation de volont\u00e9 de puissance d’un nietzsch\u00e9isme compl\u00e8tement d\u00e9natur\u00e9 et trahi est une constante de l’am\u00e9ricanisme. L’attitude rel\u00e8ve \u00e0 notre sens d’une pathologie collective caract\u00e9ris\u00e9e par l’absence de dessein ou de projet civilisateur historique par absence de r\u00e9f\u00e9rence historique pass\u00e9e, et qui est fortement signal\u00e9e par un malaise de tous temps pr\u00e9sent dans la substance m\u00eame du paradoxal Projet am\u00e9ricain (paradoxal bien sûr parce que Projet th\u00e9orique et mythique, sans projet au strict sens historique du terme …) Ce que nous d\u00e9signons comme une pathologie par rapport aux r\u00e9alit\u00e9s historiques implique que le dessein de l’avancement sans fin et sans retenue de la puissance am\u00e9ricaine est laiss\u00e9 \u00e0 l’intervention divine, au caract\u00e8re divin de la destin\u00e9e (\u00e9videmment \u00ab\u00a0manifeste\u00a0\u00bb) de l’Am\u00e9rique.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Lorsque nous parlons de pathologie, ce n’est pas gratuitement. On rappellera ici les travaux du psychiatre am\u00e9ricain Beard, qui, le premier, isola (en 1880) le sympt\u00f4me de la neurasth\u00e9nie et l’appliqua au cas am\u00e9ricain : « [L]e diagnostic tombe. Il est brutal : l’Am\u00e9rique est malade,<\/em> » explique un commentateur (4).<\/p>\n<\/p>\nL’id\u00e9e d’une pathologie collective est acceptable pour l’Am\u00e9rique. Par la force du conformisme qui structure sa soci\u00e9t\u00e9 et rejette l’opposition dans une marginalit\u00e9 qui en fait une \u00ab\u00a0dissidence\u00a0\u00bb souvent accus\u00e9e, comme par antith\u00e8se r\u00e9v\u00e9latrice, d’\u00eatre elle-m\u00eame une pathologie, ce pays \u00e9tablit un lien tr\u00e8s fort entre ses caract\u00e9ristiques collectives et les comportements individuels. On peut donc \u00e9mettre un jugement g\u00e9n\u00e9ral et collectif qui rende compte assez justement des comportements individuels, et renvoie \u00e0d’autres jugements, souvent intuitifs et de simple bon sens (au diagnostic « l’Am\u00e9rique est malade<\/em> » de Beard, correspond la remarque de Henry Miller « [Les Am\u00e9ricains sont] secr\u00e8tement inquiets »<\/em> ; ou celle du professeur de litt\u00e9rature am\u00e9ricaine Albert-J. Gu\u00e9rard \u00e9crivant en 1946 qu’« il n’y a pas de mythe aussi simpliste que celui, si commun, qui repr\u00e9sente les Am\u00e9ricains comme \u00ab\u00a0optimistes\u00a0\u00bb<\/em> ».)<\/p>\n<\/p>\nCes diverses variations psychanalytiques, qui rejoignent nombre d’oeuvres intuitives d’artistes et d’essayistes et rencontrent parfois quelques constats parcellaires de sociologues, constituent un corpus<\/em> g\u00e9n\u00e9ral capable de nous sugg\u00e9rer une explication tr\u00e8s vaste d’un malaise qui n’a jamais compl\u00e8tement quitt\u00e9 l’Am\u00e9rique, qui est particuli\u00e8rement adapt\u00e9e \u00e0 l’Am\u00e9rique et s’exprime remarquablement dans le Syst\u00e8me qui conduit sa destin\u00e9e ; l’Am\u00e9rique est ce pays qui refuse l’Histoire en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, et ce pays sans v\u00e9ritable pass\u00e9 qui fa\u00e7onne sa propre histoire dans les studios d’Hollywood pour la faire correspondre aux n\u00e9cessit\u00e9s du pr\u00e9sent (5). D’où le constat qu’effectivement, la maladie nerveuse de la civilisation r\u00e9pond bien au cas am\u00e9ricain (et moins aux cas d’autres pays qui sont eux \u00ab\u00a0historiques\u00a0\u00bb, plus attach\u00e9s \u00e0 leur pass\u00e9) : « Notre immunit\u00e9 contre la nervosit\u00e9 et les maladies nerveuses, nous l’avons sacrifi\u00e9e \u00e0 la civilisation, <\/em>\u00e9crit encore Beard. En effet, nous ne pouvons avoir la civilisation et tout le reste ; dans notre marche en avant, nous perdons de vue, et perdons en effet, la r\u00e9gion que nous avons travers\u00e9e.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\nBeard assimile essentiellement \u00ab\u00a0le mal am\u00e9ricain\u00a0\u00bb \u00e0 une neurasth\u00e9nie caus\u00e9e par le rythme de la civilisation moderne (« La nervosit\u00e9 am\u00e9ricaine est le produit de la civilisation am\u00e9ricaine.<\/em> ») Dans son livre sur la neurasth\u00e9nie, il \u00e9gr\u00e8ne les 53 « sympt\u00f4mes caract\u00e9ristiques<\/em> » de cette maladie, jusqu’au plus terrible de tous : « la peur de tout.<\/em> » Celui-l\u00e0 sera retenu comme caract\u00e9ristique particuli\u00e8rement frappante de l’Am\u00e9rique.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nLa marche en avant devient marche forc\u00e9e et fuite en avant<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
Ainsi pr\u00e9sentons-nous une hypoth\u00e8se applicable \u00e0l’Am\u00e9rique telle que l’a d\u00e9velopp\u00e9e son Syst\u00e8me, et d’une certaine fa\u00e7on au modernisme tout entier dont l’Am\u00e9rique est \u00e9videmment la repr\u00e9sentation la plus extr\u00eame : \u00e0 l’\u00e9nergie continuelle pour une marche en avant correspond cette « peur de tout.<\/em> » Celle-ci transforme la marche en avant \u00e0 la fois en une \u00ab\u00a0marche forc\u00e9e\u00a0\u00bb et en une \u00ab\u00a0fuite en avant\u00a0\u00bb. Les p\u00e9riodes heureuses où existe une immanence indiscutable pouvant figurer comme une r\u00e9f\u00e9rence historique, fabriqu\u00e9e ou pas, semblent dissiper le malaise. Ce fut le cas de la guerre froide où l’immanence communiste semblait justifier toutes les \u00e9nergies modernistes de l’Am\u00e9rique et dissiper le malaise am\u00e9ricain malgr\u00e9 les outrances extraordinaires qu’elle justifiait. Le maccarthysme fut bien accept\u00e9 par les Am\u00e9ricains, il n’interf\u00e9ra en rien dans un optimisme retrouv\u00e9 qui s’exprima dans l’expansion \u00e9conomique apais\u00e9e des ann\u00e9es Eisenhower. L’effort de d\u00e9veloppement du programme spatial menant au programme Apollo<\/em> de conqu\u00eate de la Lune, entrepris en 1957-58, fut d\u00e9crit comme « tr\u00e8s proche de l’utilisation de toutes les capacit\u00e9s de la nation. La NASA menait un effort de mobilisation jug\u00e9 impossible sauf en temps de guerre.<\/em> » Lorsque Kennedy proposa une coop\u00e9ration spatiale \u00e0 l’URSS, en septembre 1963, l’initiative fut condamn\u00e9e dans les m\u00eames milieux industriels non par opposition politique mais parce qu’une telle possibilit\u00e9 « frustrerait des millions de travailleurs du sens patriotique de l’extr\u00eame urgence.<\/em> » (6) Mais cette sorte de mobilisation est fragile et apparaît \u00e0 la r\u00e9flexion comme un masque plaqu\u00e9 pr\u00e9cipitamment sur l’affreuse r\u00e9alit\u00e9. La peur existe toujours et va se loger dans des recoins inattendus et bient\u00f4t r\u00e9v\u00e9lateurs. Ces m\u00eames ann\u00e9es cinquante de l’optimisme am\u00e9ricain furent aussi une p\u00e9riode où transparut la peur ontologique de l’Am\u00e9rique (en attendant la r\u00e9volte, puisque c’est dans les ann\u00e9es cinquante que la r\u00e9volte des ann\u00e9es soixante prit ses racines d\u00e9finitives.) Dans une \u00e9mission de la BBC (7), on entend le chanteur (noir) de rock and roll Little Richard exposer que le rock \u00e0ses premiers d\u00e9buts (1954-55) fut la premi\u00e8re diffusion nationale de la culture noire aux États-Unis (« Rock and roll est le nom que les Blancs ont donn\u00e9 \u00e0 notre rythm and blues, rien d’autre,<\/em> » explique, goguenard, le producteur de disques [noir] Ron Bartolomew.) Comment Little Richard percevait-il la lev\u00e9e de boucliers contre le rock \u00e0 cette m\u00eame \u00e9poque de ses premiers d\u00e9buts, avant la notori\u00e9t\u00e9 du blanc Elvis Presley ? « Devant cette affirmation de notre identit\u00e9 culturelle noire, les blancs ont eu peur pour leur propre identit\u00e9.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\nAinsi, par ce biais inattendu qui montre l’universalit\u00e9 du probl\u00e8me, on en revient au major Peters. Sa description pas loin d’\u00eatre hyst\u00e9rique de l’offensive culturelle nihiliste apparaît alors moins comme un accident, une aberration, que comme l’expression, certes outranci\u00e8re jusqu’\u00e0 la caricature mais r\u00e9elle, d’une tendance bel et bien en marche. La globalisation culturelle, le soi-disant \u00ab\u00a0mod\u00e8le universel am\u00e9ricain\u00a0\u00bb allant de Disney \u00e0 MacDonald et imposable au monde entier, n’est pas autre chose qu’une machine destructrice des identit\u00e9s (y compris les multiples identit\u00e9s am\u00e9ricaines) au profit d’un nivellement informe et non-identifiable ; c’est-\u00e0-dire un mouvement qui inspire \u00e9videmment et nourrit logiquement les outrances de Peters. Notre hypoth\u00e8se est qu’il s’agit l\u00e0 de la pouss\u00e9e extr\u00eame de cette « peur de tout<\/em> » qui concerne d’abord, dans le cas am\u00e9ricain et \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re des explications de Beard, la peur am\u00e9ricaine d’\u00eatre r\u00e9duit par les autres identit\u00e9s, bien plus affirm\u00e9es et sp\u00e9cifiques. L’absence de r\u00e9f\u00e9rence historique du Syst\u00e8me de l’Am\u00e9rique officielle (« la perte de la r\u00e9gion travers\u00e9e<\/em> ») est le moteur m\u00eame de cette peur. On a souvent identifi\u00e9, au d\u00e9but des ann\u00e9es quatre-vingt-dix, principalement comme une crise de l’identit\u00e9 am\u00e9ricaine (8) ce qui \u00e9tait alors per\u00e7u de fa\u00e7on vague comme la crise am\u00e9ricaine de l’apr\u00e8s-guerre froide. Que le triomphalisme de Clinton ou l’extr\u00e9misme du nihilisme jubilatoire de Peters ait remplac\u00e9 la \u00ab\u00a0crise\u00a0\u00bb ne change rien au diagnostic.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nPlus qu’une crise de civilisation, la crise de la civilisation<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
Nous voulons proposer avec cette analyse et ces hypoth\u00e8ses une explication g\u00e9n\u00e9rale qui devrait permettre d’appr\u00e9cier convenablement autant le texte de Peters que le triomphalisme de Clinton ou l’expansionnisme globalisant de Disney. Il y a en effet un comportement sp\u00e9cifique du Syst\u00e8me de l’Am\u00e9rique, \u00e9vident aujourd’hui dans les rapports des États-Unis avec leurs alli\u00e9s, sa pr\u00e9tention non \u00e0 r\u00e9genter le monde mais \u00e0 le transformer (au sens substantiel du mot) \u00e0 son image, qui nous pose un gigantesque probl\u00e8me. L’Am\u00e9rique apparaît finalement comme elle-m\u00eame d\u00e9stabilis\u00e9e encore plus que d\u00e9stabilisatrice (bien qu’elle le soit, bien sûr), alors que sa situation int\u00e9rieure est en apparence tr\u00e8s \u00e9quilibr\u00e9e et tr\u00e8s stable. Cette d\u00e9stabilisation est un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne quasiment psychologique, ce qui ne doit pas nous \u00e9tonner avec l’Am\u00e9rique car nous en avons d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu des manifestations (la Grande D\u00e9pression fut autant sinon plus de caract\u00e8re psychologique, par l’abattement extraordinaire qui saisit la population, que de caract\u00e8re purement \u00e9conomique.) La nouveaut\u00e9 qu’introduit le texte outrancier de Peters est qu’il transporte la probl\u00e9matique sur un plan essentiel, celui de la culture. Que cela vienne d’un officier de l’U.S. Army, \u00e9crivant dans une revue doctrinale de ce corps, n’en est que plus caract\u00e9ristique. Il y a l\u00e0-dedans de quoi faire r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Peters d\u00e9crit une possibilit\u00e9 apocalyptique dont les potentialit\u00e9s existent aujourd’hui. Cela permet de mieux tenter d’embrasser le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne am\u00e9ricain, et, au-del\u00e0, le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne moderniste lui-m\u00eame. Cela permet \u00e9galement d’entrevoir les normes de ce qui pourrait \u00eatre un affrontement d’un nouveau type, comme nous n’en avons jamais connu auparavant.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
La \u00ab\u00a0guerre culturelle\u00a0\u00bb telle qu’elle se dessine n’est pas la guerre d’une culture contre une autre. Il ne peut vraiment y avoir de \u00ab\u00a0guerre\u00a0\u00bb d’une culture contre une autre : il y a des rapports, des \u00e9changes, des influences, et le r\u00e9sultat peut \u00eatre effectivement qu’une culture d\u00e9cline (mais plus souvent elle se transforme). Il s’agit d’un processus somme toute naturel, et surtout exempt d’agressivit\u00e9 pr\u00e9datrice. Ce n’est pas ce que Peters nous propose. Il sugg\u00e8re l’agression caract\u00e9ris\u00e9e, la destruction programm\u00e9e, l’empoisonnement des autres cultures.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
L’essentiel \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer est ce que cette sorte de r\u00e9flexion suppose de malaise et de mal-\u00eatre cach\u00e9s. Elle rejoint une crise plus g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, que l’Am\u00e9rique exprime bien plus que n’importe quel autre pays, mais qui affecte d’une fa\u00e7on ou l’autre toutes les nations et tous les syst\u00e8mes, et qui ne pr\u00e9sente aucune coh\u00e9rence puisqu’elle pr\u00e9voit aussi bien de s’attaquer \u00e0 une partie de soi-m\u00eame. Cette crise est la menace de mort port\u00e9e contre l’identit\u00e9, c’est-\u00e0-dire l’\u00eatre soi-m\u00eame. Ainsi chemine-t-on au milieu des signes de ce qui est non pas une crise de civilisation, mais la crise de la civilisation tout court. « Ils ne mouraient pas tous, mais tous \u00e9taient touch\u00e9s<\/em> » : c’est en tout cas l’actuel \u00e9tat du monde.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nde defensa<\/em> Volume 12 n°20, rubrique Analyse<\/em>, num\u00e9ro du 10 juillet 1997<\/h4>\n<\/p>\nNotes<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
(1) Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(2) Voir notamment notre rubrique de defensa<\/em>, dd&e<\/em> Vol12, n°11 ; notre rubrique Contexte<\/em>, dd&e<\/em> Vol12, n°17.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n(3) \u00ab\u00a0L’Am\u00e9rique conquiert l’Angleterre\u00a0\u00bb, Ludwell Denny, paru en traduction fran\u00e7aise chez Gallimard, 1933.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(4) Cette citation ainsi que celles qui suivent (dont des citations de Beard) sont extraites de l’article de Patrick Di Mascio \u00ab\u00a0Les tyrannies de l’id\u00e9al : le mal am\u00e9ricain et ses rem\u00e8des (1880-1918)\u00a0\u00bb, dans \u00ab\u00a0L’Am\u00e9rique comme mod\u00e8le, l’Am\u00e9rique sans mod\u00e8le\u00a0\u00bb, \u00e9dit\u00e9 sous la direction de Jacques Portes aux Presses Universitaires de Lille (1993).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(5) Voir notamment \u00ab\u00a0Screening History\u00a0\u00bb, de Gore Vidal.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(6) Paul Mann, Aviation Week & Space Technology, 12 août 1991, \u00ab\u00a0Fear Makes a Dream Come True\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(7) Premier \u00e9pisode de la s\u00e9rie \u00ab\u00a0Dancing in the Street\u00a0\u00bb, diffus\u00e9 sur Canal Plus le 29 juin 1997.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(8) Voir les deux articles de William Pfaff \u00ab\u00a0Post-Cold War Search for U.S. Goals\u00a0\u00bb et \u00ab\u00a0Post-Cold War Anxiety : Deep and Tangle Roots\u00a0\u00bb, des 11 et 12 f\u00e9vrier 1992 dans l’International \u00ab\u00a0Herald Tribune\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pr\u00e9monition de la barbarie postmoderne A l’\u00e9t\u00e9 1997, nous avions relev\u00e9 un texte du major Ralph Peters, de l’U.S. Army, publi\u00e9 dans la revue Parameters, qui est une revue doctrinale de l’U.S. Army où s’expriment diverses opinions. M\u00eame s’il s’agissait d’un type de pens\u00e9e assez extr\u00e9miste aux États-Unis (on pourrait en juger peut-\u00eatre tr\u00e8s diff\u00e9remment… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3255,3253,3251,3216,3254,3250,3252,3249,2804],"class_list":["post-65019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analyse","tag-3255","tag-americanisme","tag-barbarie","tag-neocon","tag-parameters","tag-peters","tag-postmoderne","tag-ralph","tag-usa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}