Anonymous Comrade writes

Empire, Neo-Imperialism and NATO?

NATO will be gathering in Istanbul on June 28-29 2004. It is evident that this meeting is not only a routine one. This meeting should be interpreted as the constitution of a new global sovereignty within the power mechanism of capitalism; hence it seems to have reached an important moment throughout this unfinished, ongoing process. We call this form of global sovereignty that is in the process of constitution as Empire. The ontology of Empire, being immanent in its action, is constituted through the third world war. The spaces of compromises entirely take place within the ontological extension of war. The analysis of the form of sovereignty courses through clarifying the war politics or how the constitution policy is militarized. NATO summit is the explicit declaration of the militarization of the politics of Capitalist Empire that is the new form of global sovereignty, with the Greater Middle East Project as the policy document of twenty-first century. This summit and the policy document, in its economic, social and political entirety, is the declaration of war against global labour. Empire has started a new McCarthyism with its discourse of democracy and security.

This text should be topical and timely with respect to the context of NATO and the Greater Middle East Project. Yet this can only be granted by running over the debates upon constitution. These debates seem to be related to imperialism and neo-imperialism, and are rather being conducted in academic circles. In political organizations, however, even though they do a lot of hard mental work, these discussions remain superficial, rather than being profound. Political schools cannot surpass the academic world. Many cadres, due to the insufficiency of political schools, are gravitated toward the academic world. This fact underlines the theoretical deadlock in the revolutionary movement. Because of this deadlock, theory is reduced to rotes, and movement is reduced to practice in the narrowed sense.

To be clear, it would be more reasonable to make Negri stand out with respect to the conception of empire, and Wood with respect to the conception of neo-Imperialism. Within the limits of our discussion, we will accentuate Wood’s critique of Negri. However, we will not make a profound discussion concerning these polemics, we will just pose the problematical areas and go by.

We are not Negrist; on the other hand, due to political responsibility, we have to be objective. Negri has been identified with his book, Empire. Yet his figure is not only composed of that book; he has a particular history, collected works that has accumulated through this history, a revolution theory that would be deduced from these works and a comprehensive paradigm. The name of Negri means, coming from political movement, to go beyond academic world and to be a discussion platform. The political school of Negri has determined the academic world. The critique of empire will not disprove him; rather it will serve to reading and debating him.

The discourse of Neo-Imperialism is the search for a reading on the new form of sovereignty of capitalism by holding on to the concept of imperialism. Wood is one of the most important and valuable addresses of such a reading. Here, the funny thing is that many who argue for Wood and against Negri do not know Wood well, just as many who argue against Negri do not know him either. Wood, who is argued for, is closer to Negri than the Wood proponents.

In the reading of the current operation of capitalist power, we can mention two tendencies: the first tendency says “Lenin’s analysis of imperialism is sufficient to speak for our times,” and the other says “Lenin’s analysis of imperialism is not sufficient for analyzing our times and a new sovereignty theory that can supersede Lenin is needed”. This is the core of debate. For Wood;

So the new imperialism depends on the universalization of market dependence and market imperatives. But we don’t really have a theory of imperialism that encompasses a world of universal capitalism, a world in which the whole globe is subject to capitalist imperatives. If you think about the classic theories of imperialism, in particular the Marxist theories, they’re all based on the assumption that imperialism has to do with relations between capitalist powers and a largely non-capitalist world. Take, for instance, probably the most sophisticated of these theories, Rosa Luxemburg’s. Her argument is that the capitalist system needs an outlet in non-capitalist formations, which is why capitalism inevitably means militarism and imperialism.


  If we continue,

So, we do need a theory to deal with a world in which capitalism has become much more universal than these classical theories of imperialism ever imagined it would—not in the sense that the whole world has functioning capitalist economies but that the whole world is regulated by capitalist imperatives, and imperialism has to do with the manipulation of those imperatives. This universal capitalism is something that has only happened fairly recently.

It is clear that the classical theories of imperialism are not sufficient in reading and dealing with the condition that the empire of capital has reached, and in the analysis of this new condition we have no proper theory and that we need one. Within this context, Wood’s and Negri’s points of departure are one and the same. Negri and Wood adopt the second tendency. The difference between them is yet another aspect. Just a remark; encountering with Lenin, Negri is closer to Lenin whereas Wood keeps her distance. There is no dispute between Negri and Wood with respect to Lenin’s analysis of imperialism. For both of them it is an experienced problem; their discussion is an attempt to construct the episteme of the land that they dwell. For us, since we dwell in the same land, these discussions represent a kind of richness and diversities that will clear the way before us. We are concerned about those who seem to be unbending about Lenin’s theory of imperialism, and who, in fact, stealthily hide behind Wood’s critique of Negri. After underlining this fundamental distinction, we can continue to reflect on the need for a new form of sovereignty.

On Wood
The thrust of “We need a new theory” is very important for us. Yet the construction of a new theory necessitates a radical transformation. It is not possible to achieve this by covering in some cracks of old paradigm that knitted by our rotes. The new situation has torn the old paradigm up. Marxism should be updated by reconstructing the theory of labour that traverses the entire social relations. New constitution processes necessitate a new constitution of political philosophy. It is not possible to constitute a political theory that will clear the way for a revolutionary practice, without a rupture in the political philosophy itself.

Marx studied philosophy and law. While he was reading capitalism from a political perspective, activating his accumulation, he met with economy. He never reduced social relations of capitalism into a branch of study. Marxism is not a kind of sociological analysis. Marx’s political theory is based on the constitution of a new political philosophy. Unless we read Marx from this perspective, it is quite likely that we reduce Marxism into sociological study.

Wood tries to save Marx from sociological analysis by thinking sociologically. While she says “we need a new theory”, what she does in fact is to experience the contradictions of not being able to avoid the old paradigm, rather than to establish a new paradigm. In Wood, there is no political philosophy. Her political construction has gaps, contradictions and inconsistencies with respect to being constitutive. Thus, Wood is an address that examines the consistency of constitutive theories, rather than being a constitutive one itself. This position has two positive results: First, if the construction of a constitutive theory is weak, then by destroying it, she can prove that it was not really a constitutive one. Second, if the construction of a theory is sound, then she can fortify it by improving its insufficient points. Negri represents a constitutive frame; in our opinion, all criticisms will fortify the theory in terms of its accomplishment.

The Ontology of Global Labour

Now, you could say that in today’s global capitalism, the ‘economy’ has decisively triumphed over all other social principles and practices. The imperatives of capitalism have penetrated every human practice and the natural environment. And these imperatives now affect the whole world. In both those senses, the capitalist economy has become a universal system. Not only that, the economic imperatives of capital have broken through the boundaries of any existing or conceivable political form, and they’ve increasingly cast off the fetters of political regulation. So, we might be tempted to say that the impersonal operations of the economy have pretty much replaced anything we might recognize as imperialism. Or, at least, we might want to talk about a new imperialism, the imperialism of the economy.

Wood leaps from the definition of the imperialism of economy to a conceptual sphere: Empire of Capital or Capitalist Empire. Within this frame, Wood is not far from the concept of empire. While she can achieve to construct the ontology of Empire within the economical division, she misses the sovereignty dimension. In terms of the constitution of empire within economical dimension, she has no problem with Negri. Her lack of theoretical architecture in terms of politics causes contradictions; and because of these contradictions, irrelevant and unjustified criticisms are raised against Negri. While she says “the economic imperatives of capital have broken through the boundaries of any existing or conceivable political forms”, she cannot point out the transformation in the ontological structure of nation-states as a political form as well as the fact that nation-states are not the old nation-states any more, as a result of this transformation.

By saying, “the base/superstructure metaphor has always been more trouble than it is worth” , she indeed encounters this trouble. She cannot go beyond the duality of economical sphere and political sphere. This problem, which is not a problematic in terms of political theory, is indeed a problem in terms of political philosophy. She criticises Negri, without understanding his philosophy, as if he reduces these two spheres into a mechanical identity and allusively suggests that by the concept of empire, Negri means the global State. For in her opinion, empire, which is a form of sovereignty, is only possible as a global State in the political sphere. Departing from this critique, she erects the duality of political sphere and economical sphere, and enacts the relation between these two as a structural law. By abstracting imperialism from its political ontology and reducing it into economical sphere, she takes away the concept of sovereignty from the concept of imperialism. While with the concepts of “empire of capital” and “Capitalist Empire”, Wood accepts Negri’s determination that there is no outside any more, in the Empire, the inside-outside duality has been annihilated; she keeps, on the other hand, this duality in the political sphere. While she criticizes Negri in terms of “impersonal logic”, she does not hesitate, on the other hand, to define the operations of economical sphere, that is empire of capital, as “impersonal” mechanism. Hence, the production and the reproduction of capitalist power mechanisms cannot be analyzed. The power operates its domination through its hegemony. The production and the reproduction of power are bound to the ontology of the concept of hegemony. The production and the reproduction of capitalist domination are bound to economical hegemony. The capital has to constitute hegemony over all social relations, that is the only way of dominating labour.
“Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of all members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. Capital is therefore, not a personal, it is a social power.” “Capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons, established by means of things.”

In this context, the capital is impersonal. The ontological substance of Marx’s political philosophy is relationality. Marx’s doesn’t start from the ‘subject’; he rather starts from constitutive relation that constructs subjects. Being is an attribute; it is the movement and the action of relations. What is constitutive is the movement. Movement constructs subjects and defines itself as an impersonal subject by the abstraction of this relation between subjects. Hence in this relation, the being operates itself in everywhere and in everything. In terms of reducing this relation into a subject, subject is in non-place. When the extension of capital reduces itself into the space of subject, it becomes blocked. Extension constructs space; yet do not recognise the limits of space, and in the movement of the relation, it transgress these limits.

The capital, the ontological substance of capitalism, by way of creating economical sphere-political sphere duality, cannot be reduced to and be identified with the economical sphere. Political sphere is, too, involved in the extension of the concept of capital. State is a subject that is constituted by social relations, and it works and operates within these relations. The tension between the continuity of the measurable relations of subjects and the immeasurable movement of social relations is a law. Yet, how this tension will be dissolved is determined by the conflict itself. The capital, which as a relation of power, domination and property, is a sovereignty relation, cannot exist apart from these. Yet, it destroys their forms and then reconstructs them. Empire is constituted through the imperialist power relation of the capital. And the ontology of global capital, which has impeded the operation of imperialist power, has been constituting empire as a new form of sovereignty. Within this context, the impersonal logic in the conceptualisation of empire is not the establishment of indefiniteness, on the contrary, it is concretization of definiteness.

The Problematic of Nation State

Of course, these theories recognise that political forms have been very slow to keep up with the global economy. But the argument seems to be that, at the very least, there's an inverse relation between the geographic reach of economic power and the importance of the nation-state or any kind of territorial state. This isn't just a claim made by conventional globalisation theorists. It's also at the root of the currently most fashionable theory of "empire," the book of that name by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Their whole argument is based on the premise that the expansion of global capital means the development of a new kind of sovereignty.

First of all, this should be pointed out: This is not the case that this debate doesn’t include Wood; she is already involved in these discussions. Here is her starting point:
“But today, there’s a growing distance between the economic reach of capital and the reach of political power. Capital moves across borders and spans the world, while the state stays within its old territorial boundaries.” And “the empire of capital is certainly based on its unique ability to expand economic hegemony far beyond the reach of any territorial state, but its ability to do so paradoxically makes it more, rather than less, dependent on a system of multiple states”

Her point of departure is the imprisonment of the territorial state in its boundaries, faced with the power of economical hegemony to expand beyond borderless geographies. This is a very risky abstraction. This is the reading of the system of multiple states as a paradox. In fact it is not a paradox, but it is Wood’s own contradiction. Although she does a sound reading, she fails to voice it in the proper way. So, her problem with Negri is in fact her own problem. This risky claim could carry us to some correct results, yet it has already dynamited Wood’s own basis. For example, whereas the capital could constitute its empire, it could not constitute a global state that is identical with it, nor an empire of a territorial state. On these points, she has no problem with Negri. Nevertheless, Negri takes the system of multiple states as a point of departure, rather than the paradox between the geographical boundaries of the capital and the boundaries of the territorial sovereignty. The conceptualization that annihilates Wood’s position is the rejection of the very essence of imperialism. Imperialism is the transgression of the interwoven economical, political, military forces and sovereignty beyond the boundaries of nation state.
Imperialism itself has constituted the Empire.

The capital export influences capitalist development in the receiver countries through incredibly speeding it up. Therefore, although capital export tends to inhibit development in exporter countries a little bit, it is obvious that this inhibiton takes place at the expense of development and deepening of capitalism in the whole world.

Without seeing the internal character of neo-colonialism and imperialism, imperialism cannot be vulgarized by reducing it to political and military sovereignty of capitalist countries over non-capitalist countries. It is questionable to connect the constitution of empire to the transgression of economical sphere over the boundaries of state sovereignty; yet at the same time not grasp the imperialism, and moreover refer to neo-imperialism.

Empire is a new relation, constituted by imperialism itself and this new relation has constituted the system of multiple states through the system of single states. Thus, it is clear that we are in a new form of sovereignty. “Their (Negri’s and Hardt’s) whole argument is based on the premise that the expansion of global capital means the development of a new kind of sovereignty.” This sentence should be reformulated: “the globalization of capitalism has formed the ontology of a new form of sovereignty.”

Wood turns Negri’s analysis of the nation-state into a fundamental target of critique. Her criticisms have no validity with respect to Negri. We cannot understand such kind of reading. One that hasn’t properly read Negri would derive from Wood’s criticism such a conclusion: In the operation of empire, there is no place of nation states. Furthermore, the concept of State has lost its importance with respect to political struggle. This is an unjust conclusion.

In Wood, there is no other analysis, except the stress on the transformation of nation- state in transition from classical imperialism period to neo-imperialism period. Negri has lucubrated and written pages on these issues. Negri’s critique of modernism is itself an analysis of nation-state. In his analysis he constitutes modernism as the ontology of nation-state. He sees nation state as an operation within the power mechanism of modernism. Now, the characteristics of this power mechanism have been abolished. In fact he never claims that territorial state has been abolished. For Negri nation-state is not a geographical region; he constituted the geography of nation state in his analysis vis a vis economical, political and military contexts. While he mentions “the declining sovereignty of nation-states and their increasing inability to regulate economic and cultural exchanges,” he doesn’t mean that in the context of the command of empire, the nation state has been disfunctionalized. Rather, he means that the nation state cannot fulfill its functions in the power mechanism of modernism anymore. However, Wood charges Negri of claiming that the “nation state actually fades away”. It would be better to show that these criticisms are irrelevant and fictional by draw Negri out himself, and put an end to this discussion.

The Pyramid of the Empire
What Wood puts into debate repeatedly is the problematic of ‘state’ through nation-state. Although she underlines many very principal and well known but significant facts, the relation between them is expressed incoherently in such terms as ‘but’ or ‘however’. The matter is not to reveal facts in a right way but rather to constitute an episteme within a conceptual framework concerning deployment of facts. This is what we mean by saying that Wood has no architecture.
The debate on capital and state in terms of the notion of sovereignty is different from the debate on the form of state in terms of the form of sovereignty. Wood problematizes nation-state in terms of capital and state. As long as capital exists, the territorial state would also exist. The problem is to debate nation-state in terms of the form of sovereignty. For Wood this categorization is intricate. If you consider nation-state in terms of the debate on capital and state, you reduce the debate on nation-state in terms of form of sovereignty into the debate on capital and state. For the sake of consistency, it must be concluded that the state is no longer in need of capital, or that the state becomes insignificant for the production and reproduction of the body of capital. Surely, this approach is relevant for the liberals, however it is not fair to put Negri into the category of liberals as one wishes. For us, Negri puts nation-state into debate in terms of both the form of state and a new form of sovereignty. The thing we would like to emphasize is that there is a lack of theory of state form within the power mechanism of empire. Problematizing a proper issue is not the same as producing answers for it. Neither Wood nor Negri has produced answers for this problem. Some questions cannot be replied by theory but rather through politics.

Globalization, then, does not mean the decline of the nation state. If anything, the new form of imperialism we call globalization is more than ever an imperialism that depends on a system of multiple states. Precisely because the imperialism of globalization depends on extending purely economic hegemony and market imperatives far beyond the reach of any single state, it is especially dependent on a plurality of subordinate states to enforce those imperatives and to create the climate of legal and political order, the stability and predictability, that capital needs in its daily transactions.

Wood herself confirms the definition given by Negri concerning empire as ‘the form composed of a series of national and transnational organisms unified under a single logic of command’. ‘The single logic of command’ means subordination of the whole world through globalizing the economic hegemony and market imperatives. ‘A series of national and transnational organisms unified under a single logic of command’ means ‘system of multiple states’. Whether you define this ontology as imperialism or neo-imperialism, nothing matters. Constitution of a new political theory is a matter of constitution of a new epistemology in accordance with a new ontology. New ontology cannot be uttered with old epistemology. If you try to do this, you end up with confusing everything with concepts such as ‘imperialism’, ‘neo-imperialism’, ‘empire of capital’, ‘capitalist empire’ or ‘borderless empire of globalization’ since old concepts do not help. Constitutiveness is a matter of production of concepts. System of multiple states is the constituent and agent of globalization. Globalization functions on the whole through localization. Territorial states have been internationalized economically, politically and militarily. The internationalized territorial states operationalize ‘uniform logic of command’ at the level of national and international relations. In this sense, maintenance of sovereignty of nation-state is organically in relation with internationalization. Territorial states are crucial agents of the power mechanism of empire. Negri introduces supranational institutions, global corporations and non-governmental organizations as agents within the functioning of empire and considers all of them as constituting the aristocracy of empire. He calls the conflictual and contradictory relation of all these actors as empire being a new form of sovereignty.
For Negri,

On the top of the shrinking pyramid, there is a superpower; that is the USA, holding the global monopoly of coercive power. This is a superpower that prefers to act in collaboration with others under the umbrella of the UN rather than acting on its own.

And Negri identifies the USA as the monarch and associates the power of empire with Rome functioning through the tension between monarchy and aristocracy. Wood also includes the USA as an actor in the system of multiple states and defines it as imperialist.
The claim for being the king or kingdom of the empire is different from the empire of a territorial state. Since Wood considers empire of capital, capitalist empire or borderless empire of globalization as a system of multiple states, no global state is possible. Secondly, she does not use the concept of the US Empire and excludes any notion of empire of any territorial state:

‘The main place of capitalist power is, of course, the United States. But what I've been trying to suggest here is that this imperial power depends not only on its own domestic state but on the whole global system of multiple states. That means that every one of those states is an arena of struggle and a potential counter-power.’

However,

‘…not even the United States, with or without its allies, can ensure the compliance of so many states. Not even the most advanced military force can keep this global system in line all at once, by means of constant direct coercion.’

Negri and Wood are common on these two points. If we advance the commonality between them:

It is becoming increasingly clear that a unilateral or “monarchical” arrangement of the global order – centred on the military, political and economic dictation of the United States – is undesirable and unsustainable.

Therefore both of them emphasize the impossibility for the USA to turn the global system into an empire of its own kingdom. However they differ from each other on the question of whether empire has a center. When Negri says that in his own architecture there is ‘no center’ of the system that functions with multiple centers rather than a unique center, he is self-consistent and never allows any ambiguity. In contrast, he concretely reveals the new form of sovereignty functioning with multiple centers. We should notice ‘but’ and ‘however’ in the last two quotations by Wood: it is center ‘but...’, it is imperialism ‘however…’ No constituent political theory can be elaborated in such a situation of lack of architecture. Imperialism is a crucial and consistent theory. We could also move on with saying ‘imperialism but…’, however this would be disrespectful towards Lenin.

NATO
The tensions the USA created in the UN, NATO and EU before the Iraq war have been misinterpreted with old concepts. It has been self-confidently argued that the UN, NATO and EU had been paralyzed and would be dissolved. Real life has demonstrated that these calculations do not hold true. We anticipated that these tensions have risen since these institutions that had been functionalized within the power mechanism of imperialism have not yet adopted to the ontology of the new form of sovereignty. We have also claimed that they would survive rather than decline, by being restructured based on militarization of ontological politics of the new form of sovereignty. No need for being humble, life confirms us.

Major capitalist powers today are very unlikely to go to war with each other, if only because, however much their economies may be damaged by competition, they need each other as markets and sources of capital. So imperial hegemony in the world of global capital depends on controlling competitors without going to war with them.

Negri also agrees with Wood on this point. One of the most important dynamics of Lenin’s theory of imperialism is the inevitability of war between imperialist states. He considers this abstraction as an ontological necessity rather than theoretical possibility. Although today the world goes through a third world war, we cannot observe it as an open inter-imperialistic war. Many parties claim that the war between imperialist states is fought as regional war. However they are not able to explain why the ontological necessities of imperialist war do not materialize and they try to explain it with the fact of nuclear arms. Although Negri discusses the background for why there is no war between imperialist states, he does not construct empire as a new form of sovereignty through a new ontology of war or this ontology of war has not been constructed yet and it is lacking. We should acknowledge that Wood is more political on this subject.
Lenin considers the imperialist states as the workshops of the world market. The imperialist centers are factories as the production sites of the capital accumulation process within the world economy. They buy raw materials, turn out them into products and export them to the world market as commodities. Within the era of imperialism based on commodity export, the circulation area of the capital accumulation process of the world economy is the world market. In terms of the theory of sovereignty, the capital process is assured by constitution of economic hegemony through subordination of social relations to the market imperatives. Integration of relations of production, circulation and distribution depends upon the political power of the capital. The invisible hand is intertwined with the visible fist within a tense, harmonious and conflictual relation. This fist means nation-state at inside and imperialism at outside. Raw materials and especially energy sites are areas of occupation of imperialism. In the period of capital export of imperialism that transcends the period of commodity export, this essence does not change. The divergence between the geographies of production and circulation and the tensions rising from this divergence are, for us, the ontological essence of the theory of imperialism. Deepening of capital accumulation inside and repletion of national market has further increased these tensions.
The second essence is law of unequal development. The formation and maintenance of monopoly capitalism depends upon assurance of production process within national borders. Competition among imperialist states is pursued at two levels: with tariff borders at inside, and with war at outside. Unequal development in terms of national economies is inevitable due to this protectionism of the capitalist development on the basis of internal dynamics. Although the world market’s imperialist split is completed, it is open to re-split due to unequal development among imperialist states. Capital is inherently global. Capital develops and reinforces production and reproduction of social relations rampantly. In the global character of capital, the divergence between geographies of production and circulation is the most crucial ontological tension of capitalism. Imperialism has transcended this tension of capitalism. If it had not, destruction of capitalism would have been inevitable. In this sense imperialism is constitutive of empire. The tendency that ‘global capital is fluid over the smooth surface of empire’ is not true. This expression should be revised as: ‘global capital is fluid over the rough surface of empire.’ There is no longer divergence of production and circulation process within the capital accumulation process of the world economy. Fluidity has risen to surface from underground. Today the hybridity is the character of global capital. Location of the centers of global corporations in specific nation-states is not a claim that negates the hybrid character of global capital. If the mode of functioning of new sovereignty is grasped, it becomes recognizable that capital strengthens its hybrid character. Empire is the hierarchical command of hybrid functioning. Economical, social and political borders are obstacles and asperities for empire. Empire is sovereignty without borders, smoothening of the rough surface depends upon militarization of the politics of the empire. Whether this will be achieved or not will be determined by the class struggles of the 21st century.
In the imperialist era, the competition between monopolies performed the law of unequal development between countries by means of wars between imperialist states. Within Empire, the competition between global monopolies does not work on the basis of protection of production within national borders. There is no longer any borders to be protected. Maintaining the geographical national borders is possible to the extent that territorial states function within the borderless sovereignty of the empire.
Competition between global monopolies is structuring on the basis of technological advantage that makes labor more efficient. The technological production that increases labor efficiency determines social labor time and wages in the world economy. This situation makes subordination of the world to market imperatives of the world economy and constitution of economic hegemony necessary. Since the economy between imperial countries and the market relations become hybrid, protection of production within national borders that has led to inter-imperialistic wars has disappeared. The export of crisis inside the imperial countries and between each other is predicated upon constitution of economic hegemony through subordinating the other regions of the world to market imperatives. This situation is possible only if the third world is contained by turning it into a free trade zone. There is no need for open political coercion in order to subordinate the G20 countries, which have achieved the material and ideological infrastructure of modernity within the context of neo-colonialism, to the market imperatives. The capital of these countries themselves call for it, as the integration of geographies of production and circulation of global capital accumulation process enforces the capital of these countries to become organically the part of the hybrid functioning of global monopolies. The crisis created by Group-22 in the Cancun meeting of the WTO is a challenge against the obstacles of the imperial states in the way of globalization.

The ontology of global capital accumulation has internationalized and globalized all political forms of sovereignty. Localization and globalization are ontology of capital. In this sense, globalization constitutes itself through system of multiple states. This hybrid ontology can be maintained only through a hierarchical body that is structured by multiple centers but functioning with single centers. In this sense all the agents of globalization, in other words, the aristocracy of the empire struggles for becoming an actor in the hierarchy of sustainability of chaos of this multilaterally functioning system. The first cause of the world war we are passing through is the power struggle in the constitution of this hierarchy. The first cause will be constituted in relation to the second cause of the war.
The capacity of global capital to transcend the geographical borders inside and outside is predicated upon subordination of social relations within these transcended borders to market imperatives. The economical power of capital is not capable of transcending the borders of social relations that do not function according to market imperatives. The borders confronting the economic coercion of capital are transcended by the political and military power of capital. The global capital is confronted with nation-states structured with social relations that have not yet completed the material and ideological infrastructure of modernity and resisting the market imperatives of the world economy. The ontology of empire is a war waged against all of the nation-states, especially the Islamic countries, resisting and interrupting globalization. If necessary the borders of these countries can be divided and re-established. This is the second cause of the world war. The first cause is interrelated and intertwined with the second cause.
This rough surface of the capitalist empire has been smoothed by economical and political coercion. The aristocracy of the empire has delegated its political power to the military power of the USA as the monarch in order to eliminate the asperities resisting the fluidity of global capital. As Wood explains ‘the allies of the USA is content with the USA acting as the police of global capital.’ We call the relation between the aristocracy and monarch of the empire as Bonapartism. Bonapartism means delegation of political power of aristocracy to the military power of the USA in order to maintain, functionalize and develop the system operating with multiple centers. This relation has been established and maintained through the wars on Iraq in 1991 and then on Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan under the command of alliance between the UN and NATO. In the second Iraq war, this relation has been undermined. The USA has declared globalization as the empire of its own kingdom. Faced with this declaration, the aristocracy of the empire withdrew its political power from the Bonaparte. The last one and a half year has shown that the USA’s declaration of globalization as the empire of its own kingdom is not compatible with the ontology of the empire’s system functioning with multiple centers. Now there is a need for a new relation between the monarch and aristocracy of the empire: a new Magna Carta. The NATO meeting that is going to be held in Istanbul is declaration of the new Magna Carta. Empire has tended towards transition from Bonapartism to constitutional monarchy as a new form of sovereignty through a new Magna Carta.

Greater Middle East and EUROMED
EUROMED is the European-Mediterranean partnership. This agreement is a very crucial imperial strategy of the EU aiming at integration with the Mediterranean region. Unfortunately almost nobody has heard about this imperial policy influencing and determining many of the affairs in Turkey, Cyprus and the Middle East.
EUROMED that dates back to older times is a step taken at Barcelona Conference in 1995. The signatory countries are the EU and 12 Mediterranean countries: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Malta, Cyprus, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon. The geography on which these countries are located includes the North Africa and Middle East. Most of the countries are Muslim Countries. GME is the expansion of EUROMED eastwards. This is not a coincidence. EUROMED is the draft of GME. Although GME is deployed as a discourse, its content is unknown. If one wants to learn about its content, it will be illuminating enough to look at EUROMED.
EUROMED is the particular document of subordination of all social relations to the imperatives of the global market as the single logic of command of the empire. The purpose is to turn the region into a free trade area on the basis of the principles of the WTO by 2010. We do not present here a comprehensive account of the EUROMED agreement. We will touch upon its importance and conclude.
The Barcelona Declaration as the constitution of EUROMED emphasizes three purposes in general. Firstly ‘creation of peace and stability that would be maintained through increasing political dialogue and security.’ Secondly, ‘creation of a common area of welfare through free trade area that the Mediterranean countries would form among themselves and with the EU through economic and financial partnerships.’ Thirdly, ‘developing social, cultural and humanitarian solidarity as to promote cultural exchange and perception between civil societies.’ And in terms of these titles, ‘maintenance of adjustment of the laws and standards of the Mediterranean partners in a rapid fashion with that of the EU in the areas of tariffs, free flow of commodities, intellectual and property rights, financial services and public purchases.’ The EU did not have any military power for realization of this project. The USA did not have any comprehensive and all-embracing political project on which its military power would be predicated. The imperial powers have compounded their power under the single logic of command of the empire. The GME is now directly facing us.
The NATO declared itself as the global security power in its meeting on January 3, 2003. It assumed maintenance of security in Afghanistan getting beyond the Atlantic borders. It expanded by including nearly all of the East European states. As Wood says ‘the borderless empire of globalization needs infinite war: a war without boundaries, a war that is endless in both purpose and time.’
NATO is from now on the central killing machine of the empire. The Istanbul meeting is declaration of the fact that global capital will rampantly operationalize the killing machine. After June 30 the UN will intervene and the NATO will be the occupation force in Iraq on the basis of the legitimacy of the UN. In the coming years, Israel in the first place and then Iraq, Jordan and Egypt will join the NATO and the empire will plague in the Middle East through NATO. It is time for communists. It is time for production of an anti-militarist discourse by the labor front that will transcend rather than confine itself only to imperialism and opposition to occupation. Let’s destroy the killing machines! Let’s close the weapon factories. A world without borders, states and war is possible…"