An insider's account of imperialism in the modern age
After World War II, the US government was faced with a question: How can you advance your country’s interests abroad without causing armed conflict and mass casualties? Looked at one way, this almost sounds like a call for global peace. But the US government’s answer was a little more nefarious than that.
By the start of the Cold War in the 1960s, the US had a persuasive way to back up its words: the threat of the atomic bomb. But although such a weapon is incredibly powerful, it’s hardly practical for day-to-day negotiations. The US needed a more effective way to encourage world leaders to promote US commercial interests without risking more bloodshed.
So it added a new tool to its arsenal: Economic Hit Men.
The key message here is: Economic Hit Men use debt as leverage to promote US interests around the world.
An Economic Hit Man, or EHM, is something like a secret agent. But unlike James Bond, an EHM mostly relies on the art of persuasion. Instead of gadgets, an EHM's tools are payoffs, extortion, and misleading economic reports, all with one main purpose: push countries to accept more and more economic aid from international organizations like the World Bank. Then use that debt to influence policy decisions, especially ones related to valuable natural resources like oil. When countries owe money, the US can count on their loyalty, and that also benefits large US corporations and their wealthy investors.
With their doctored financial reports, EHMs convinced leaders that the programs they pushed would help the local economy flourish. If the leader wasn’t aligned with US interests – or was unwilling to cooperate – EHMs would help instigate coups, followed by elections rigged to ensure a more agreeable replacement took over. EHMs also made use of extortion, threats, and whatever else was necessary to achieve US political, economic, and military goals.
But in 1953, a CIA agent named Kermit Roosevelt organized a coup in Iran. The goal was to regain unrestricted access to Iran’s oil reserves. While the coup was successful, the US realized it was playing a dangerous game. People like Roosevelt, who were organizing coups and pressuring leaders through debt, were representatives of the US government. If they were found out, it would be a big problem. The solution? Funnel money to private sector companies, who would then hire and manage teams of EHMs around the world. If efforts went awry, they could only be traced back to these private corporations, and not the CIA or US military.
The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2016) is an insider’s account of imperialism in the modern age. Drawing on the author’s experiences of working behind the scenes to further America’s interests, it sheds light on how the United States uses debt to manipulate and control smaller nations. Twelve years after its first publication in 2004, enough had changed to warrant a second look at how a new generation of Economic Hit Men have been peddling influence abroad – and at home.
Einar had hired me as an economist, but I was soon to learn that my real job went far beyond that.
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Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
