Realpolitiks : The Age Of Democratic Empire and Economic Control (Ch.13a)

CHAPTER XIII:

Ch.13a

Realpolitiks : The
Age Of Democratic Empire and Economic Control

Janus considered what
he knew about that time.  The vidscreen
databanks contained much on the subject but he wanted to understand it more
deeply than the documentaries produced by the “children” of the “international”
age in the last hundred years or so could explain.  He was used to their ideas.  For many years he had bought them, but now he
wished to make his own mind up.  The
received wisdom in an age which could not effectively question its own social
and economic system was that the past had been an evolution towards a natural
and sensible present, which would lead onwards on a path of increasing
progress.  This view contained the
implication that the present was good and that it superseded the past, which
was not so good, but the future would be even brighter. The nations of the past
had made bad mistakes but they had eventually learned from those mistakes.  There was an implication that everyone accepted
that the present was better than the past. 
Janus was not so sure.

He had watched one of
the old documentaries from the Database again, which he recalled having seen
and been impressed by some years ago, during his earlier education.  It concerned the period of the big
superpowers when national animosity had led the large states into war against
each other, trampling smaller states underfoot. 
The Martan Empire had been a real empire then, with a live Emperor who
had been in close cooperation with the Martan Assembly and its President, who
led the National Party.  The Martan
Empire had governed more than one fifth of the planet’s land area in those days
before independence had been granted to its “colonies” and it had exercised its
leadership over a bloc of dependant and allied nations which gave it control of
nearly half the world. Martan troops had gone wherever their president and
Emperor directed in the world, regardless of whose country it was or whether it
was right to intervene in the local politics of the area.  Foreign politics had been dictated by what
the leaders termed “Realpolitik” considerations.  It meant preserving a balance of power or
gaining power and influence at the expense of enemies.  It was the larger balance which counted and
not the local situation on the ground. 
For this reason many countries around the world suffered the usual cycle
of civil war, intervention and final settlement which usually lasted 15 -20
years or longer.  Usually the Empire won
because it was the largest state, but sometimes they lost due to the strength
of  the alliances set against them or the
persistence of the local enemies.

Janus was sickened as
he considered the evils which had so often been tolerated by the Empire in
those days in the name of Constitutional Democracy and Freedom but in practice
for the sake of  Realpolitik and  maintenance of the balance of power.  Imperial victories they normally were on the
surface and ostensibly democracy and freedom had been preserved, but in the
countries which suffered their interventions there was suffering, economic and
cultural decimation as the economics and culture of the Empire and its allies
swamped native independence.  All
possible means were used to ensure that these countries remained loyal to
Marta’s international economic and political order. Threats and actions of
economic blockade, military interventions, the installation of  new caretaker governments by dull puppets who
received their orders directly from Marta City and then called elections which
resulted in the rise of new puppets backed by Marta who won their elections
because Marta gave them money to spend on campaigns and the cowed locals
believed they could only guarantee future peace if they voted for candidates acceptable
to Marta.  The Empire sometimes favoured
two main parties, both led by acceptable candidates who were both awarded
election funds.  When undesirable
election results occurred Marta was swift to denounce the elections as “not
free and fair”, accusing ballot rigging and intimidation even against the advice
of independent observers and the condemnation of other states.  Marta knew its own media supported its own
view of the world and would not bite the hand that fed it. Marta knew its own
population only believed that its government only acted in their own best
interests.  The majority never questioned
their own government’s sense of right and wrong.  Having installed acceptable rulers on
countries by the ballot box many of these began to shed their democratic
credentials as their lack of economic and social vision became apparent to the masses
who had been duped into voting for them and as these leaders began to exploit
the spoils of government for themselves and their followers.  In the face of resurgent nationalist or
progressive protest they began to rely on their armies more and more. Sometimes
as unpopularity turned toward rebellion Marta would send the message or even
repeat the appliance of the earlier intervention to force the unpopular
candidate out of office.  Often the
replacement leader was a military man representing stability.  While Marta preferred elections they did not
always insist on them.  The problems
which caused dissatisfaction were ignored by Marta.  The essential result was that an ally was in
power and business could continue as before. 
There was no attempt to 
appreciate why each succeeding 
government  became so unpopular or
how the stresses of society could be calmed.

Sometimes if the small
country was a reasonable distance away from the Empire itself it might make
small progressive gains towards its own economic and political independence
enabling it to design its own system of government and economics.

These experiments were
almost always, without fail, resisted by Martan foreign policy.  Other nations were ordered not to deal with
them.  They were accused of belonging to
the enemy camp even though they merely accepted the friendly overtures and
practical benefits  which were offered
without giving up any of their own independence.  If the realpolitik threat was considered
great enough by Marta an economic blockade might be brought to bear or
opposition parties or the military encouraged to take power. Sometimes full
scale civil war was engineered by Martan finance or ruthless guerrilla movements
who fought supposedly in the name of democracy but actually fought against democratically
elected governments.  The last resort was
always armed intervention but usually it did not come to that.  The threats of a Martan ambassador  combined with the wealth he was willing to
dispose of to the right parties was usually sufficient to bring about an
acceptable solution for the Empire in the end.

Compliance with the
Martan Imperial will was to become a part of 
the Empire’s expanding trade sphere, the growing International
Economy.  It meant governments in debt to
Marta and the successful nations’ banking sector, restrictions on government spending
in return for  Martan International Aid
Loans.  It meant Martan and successful multinational
Houses buying properties all over the victim country so that all economic and
business decisions which were taken were taken abroad on the basis of
profitability not in the victim nation on the basis of the greater good of the
country and its local population.  It
meant openness to the Martan/International world market – floods of imports
destroying local businesses and jobs, economic imbalance against the rest of
the world where the victim fights harder and harder to produce chap goods and
produce for  export in a desperate attempt
to earn sufficient Martan currency to pay for the increased imports.  The greedy were tempted by the imports.  Those with position and status and wealth
were very happy with their situation and could sit back contentedly making money
while the currency slipped in value, thousands became unemployed and profits went
abroad.  The government were forced to
close hospitals, schools and national projects. 
At the level of the ordinary population people suffered.  Unemployment rose, wages went down. Cheap
labour was the only way of retaining a market. 
Workers lived in poverty even while they worked.  Agriculture was not devoted to feeding their
own people but to providing special luxury crops for International
markets.  Education and health services
could not be provided by the government, only the wealthy could afford them.  Resentment against Marta simmered, flaring up
from time to time in terrorist actions or guerrilla wars of liberation, usually
bound to fail.

In the midst of small
wars, fought in distant countries against an alliance led by Paldein Wernland,
Parnamor and Mandol and Ossland, the army in Marta rebelled behind the Communalist
party, leading a revolution, which surprised the Imperial leadership.  The Revolution leaders made a quick peace
with Martan enemies to provide a breathing space for their “new society”, while
encouraging certain other nations to turn against their rulers and become
Communalist.  For a time there was a new
kind of peace between the big states as the power structures altered and new
alliances were forged.  The Communalists
were non-national and international in their outlook but the new governments
soon became attached, in the minds of the people they ruled and foreign powers
alike, as a part of the national culture and identity.  Foreign powers which continued to resist the
Communalist trend, and they were the majority, associated their own
anti-communalism with their nations.  The
national character of international rivalries began to reassert itself in an
ideological way.