War by another name
Apr 20, 2025
By GHK Lall
Kaieteur News- What US President Donald Trump has unleashed is the economic equivalent of war. To some extent, it is as good as imposing a quarantine, tightening sea lanes, and leaning into the airspace of other nations that ran afoul of his visions. Sun Tzu and Baron von Clausewitz would have had their ideas. Get in the first blow. But, as in many other wars, the other side has a few choices of its own. The first is to capitulate without a fight. Or cry out in anger. Or coolly calculate how to gear up for a battle that could be about short-term sparring, or a long, drawn-out mixing it up with tormentors, those with a mind to being world conquerors. Not so long ago, in the America of before, there were the Vulcans of President George W. Bush. Today, there is another such aspirant to similar fantasies in America, and like Rice and Armitage and the Dark Prince of that fateful era, overreaching could lead to flying too close to the sun. The learned should know of a Greek fellow named Icarus who harboured such grandiosities, only to lose his ambitions and fall right back to earth. Flat on his face.
Let’s check out what’s going on. The first reaction of those under attack, equivalent or real, is to marshal their minds. In turn, that leads to marshalling of strengths. That phase of the American-initiated war is already well underway, and those who are squeamish should take cover. There will be bodies all over. Allies are screaming bloody murder. I call that the boomerang effect. The stock markets go down, and they take some of the earlier arrogance and swagger out of some billionaires caught in the downdrift. Those who own lots of securities have begun to feel the rain of heavy blows. The love of money beats loyalty. The love of money trashes prior love for leaders. Hit a man in the pocket, and he transforms into a rogue rocket. Right back in the kisser of those to whom fealty was pledged. It’s nothing fancy, just commonsense, folks.
Some of the targeted folded their tents and raised their hands in surrender. The four words enjoying the widest circulation, almost like a beauty queen, are ‘let’s make a deal.’ Those so interested are in the right place with the right person across the table in the right setting. Joy to the world, let peace prevail, and Make America Great Again, all just took off with renewed zest. Going in the opposite direction are the Wall Street bulls, who got gored last week, and are in for some more, temporary reprieves notwithstanding. Some of the older heads are making ominous comparisons to the Smoot-Hawley development in America of a hundred years ago, which is held by many to have contributed to the global disaster that was the Great Depression. Those were the hardest of times, and unless calm and coherent heads take control of the US environment, there is the danger of coming close to a repeat of that horror. The wise Chinese said it best: trade wars (note the language, please) hurt everyone. It is my position that Smoot-Hawley and the similarly ill-fated Kellogg-Briand Pact, each in its own way, made some input, however inadvertently and minimally, to the last Great War. Bad policy leads to bad outcomes. Protecting home industries cuts both ways, with everybody involved (plus others trapped on the periphery) ending up losing.
Back in the day, trying to corner trade or corner opponents in different parts of the world wasn’t taken sitting down. Look at the grisliness and widespread devastation that battered many, spared few. It is a different world now. One with satellites, instantaneous interconnectivity, and the ability to read the minds of adversaries. Well, almost. The scales are more finely balanced today, with unbeatable advantages to those facing off across from each other. A few have blinked, and there are more who will kowtow before the American steamroller and flyswatter that are beginning to take shape. Of course, there are those whose very nature inspires them to fight fire with more fire. No backing down, no tricky and tangly diplomacy, only a willingness to getting down and getting on with it. Whoever is interested in finding out who is better at watering the garden over a longer distance, well, they are free to learn at their own expense.
War is war, and it is not a nice thing, whether fought with missiles or through the arms of economic policy taken to the extreme. War is hell, according to US Army General William Tecumseh Sherman. If there is anyone who should know, he is the man. Well, there is a war on now, and Guyana is scrambling to get on the right side. In their lust for power, there are those here who are deceiving the people while digging deep holes for them. Whatever the price to be paid, the Guyanese people will find themselves saddled with the honours. In a country that has given up its identity, there is the irony of readiness to fight other people’s wars. War, by whatever means fought, is ugly and costly.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)Â
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