Wikileaks, Gramsci, and American Hegemony

(Editors note: I began writing this post over the weekend- as of 7 Dec , Julian Assange has been arrested in London)

Oh, Wikileaks.  You really caused a stir didn't you?  Releasing all those diplomatic cables, frank discussions on topics juicy and banal, caused considerable consternation among top policy makers in Washington, but then again that was the point right?  Why else would Joe Liberman engage Amazon so that their hosting of the Wikileaks would be discontinued?  Or that the White House is now instructing all Federal Agencies to essentially forbid their employees from accessing the Wikileaks website and the Library of Congress, that hallowed information institution, actively censors Wikileaks from their terminals or wireless connections?  In a sense, the reason the leaked cables caused such a frenetic outpouring of action from the Federal Government, who, it must be remembered, did little more than complain about previous document dumps on both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, is something Antonio Gramsci certainly knew about well; hegemony. 

Antonio Gramsci

For those not familiar with Antonio, or Mr. Gramsci as I like to call him, essentially the quick and dirty of his life is this; Italian communist who, upon being sentenced to a lengthy jail term in the 1920's, took to elaborating his philosophical positions in several 'Prison Notebooks' in an attempt to help explain why Italian workers turned on Communism in favor of Fascism as a governing model to follow.  He is credited with coining the term 'hegemony' to explain the 'pull' certain ideas or individuals have upon sections of the population both great and small.  When looking for guidance on who or what to follow or believe, Gramsci stated that people look towards the 'organic intellectuals'- essentially anyone who possesses the respect of others to a degree that their opinion carries weight in decision making- when formulating a stance with regards to almost any position.  Hegemony in the political sphere today is largely regarded as the capacity of a nation to affect the change it desires, hence the recent brew ha ha over the leaked US diplomatic cables as many policy makers claim the revelations derived seriously jeopardize not only American hegemony, but also, if you believe Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, constitute an attack on the international order itself.  

While I respect the frustration the federal government must feel over having their secret communiques aired like so much dirty laundry, the recent fervor over censorship of the Wikileaks website and calls, by some, for violent action to be taken against Julian Assange obviously point towards a different wellspring of feeling than the one expressed by governing powers when Wikileaks released the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs.  The reason for the varied expression can be found, I believe, in the writings of Gramsci regarding what he termed the 'war of maneuver' versus the 'war of position' in the political arena.     

For Gramsci, concerns of civil society were of paramount importance as this force acted like a 'superstructure', allowing modern democracies of the 20th century to endure shocks and strains of a much greater degree than previous monarchical or constitutional powers could during the 19th century.  This capacity of nations to carry on in the face of horrendous sacrifices, evidenced for Gramsci and many others in the brutality and longevity of the First World War, only affirmed the notion that modern governments could marshal tremendous power so long as it possessed the backing of the people, represented by civil society.  Yet while he appreciated the grandeur of modern power, Gramsci also understood that the exercise of hegemony could be fickle, wherein one day the people provide support and the next they withdraw and become indifferent or, worse, revolutionary.

In his writings on 'State and Civil Society', concepts of the war of position and the war of maneuver exemplified for Gramsci the different manifestations of hegemony modern states could muster.  Let's examine a quote from the Prison Notebooks first, then dive into figuring out how this applies to the current Wikileaks situation:

The war of position demands enormous sacrifices by infinite masses of people.  So an unprecedented concentration of hegemony is necessary, and hence a more 'interventionist' government...since in politics the "war of position", once won, is decisive definitively.  In politics, in other words, the war of maneuver subsists so long as it is a question of winning positions which are not decisive, so that all the resources of the State's hegemony cannot be mobilised.  But when, for one reason or another, these positions have lost their value and only the decisive positions are at state, then one passes over to siege warfare; this is concentrated, difficult, and requires exceptional qualities of patience and inventiveness.  In politics, the siege is a reciprocal one, despite all appearances, and the mere fact that the ruler has to muster all his resources demonstrates how seriously he takes his adversary. (238-239)        

For Gramsci, the question of mobilising the full force of hegemony for a state requires being engaged in a war of position, that is the conflict that occurs after the non-decisive positions typified in the war of maneuver are exhausted.  The remaining positions bring the state into a siege mentality that, while allowing the full force of hegemony to be brought to bear, also reveals the adversary to be, at least for the moment, equally capable of winning and thus shifting the power of hegemony to its side.  This helps explain not only the evolution of political power in modern democracies, but the capacity of these modern societies to fall and lose their hegemonic grip as well.

How does this connect to America and Cablegate?  Using the terminology above, the war of position for America for almost the entire past decade has been the Global War on Terror (GWOT).  Looking back on the evolution of this war, we see that the initial stages demonstrated what Gramsci termed the 'war of maneuver' as US policy makers came to grips with a new threat unlike previous challenges found in the Cold War.  What would be the role of the US in this new global front?  What adjustments to foreign policy must be made to accommodate this new paradigm?  While the observer today might see continuity in the objectives and aims of the US GWOT (and some would definitely argue the opposite) the same could not be said for the first few years following the September 11th attacks.  That initial period of policy formulation- a movement that came to embrace preemptive war and increasingly thin lines between interrogation and torture- could be said to exemplify the 'battles over non-decisive positions' in the war of maneuver characterized by Gramsci.

Colin Powell's speech at the UN, justifying the case for increased action against Iraq in the lead up to eventual war, could arguably be seen as the beginning shift from the war of maneuver to the war of position.  Here now is an excerpt from a CNN documentary about the UN speech:



By using our top ranked diplomat to make the case for intervention in the affairs of Iraq at the United Nations, to me, typifies the significant amount of hegemony a state can only muster once it has engaged in the war of position.  The war in Iraq came to define the American role in the GWOT, with many of our continuing foreign and domestic policy goals centered on the developments spurred by that war.  While these efforts have certainly had their proponents and detractors, there has been little evidence for serious resistance by the global regime to resist the American efforts in the realm of the GWOT.  With the Wikileaks diplomatic cables release, all of that has changed.

Now private dealings and personal musings on the character of foreign notables is revealed to anyone with an internet connection, and, unlike the previous document releases related to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, this release provoked serious reaction by the US government.  Why were the 'war docs' less irritating?  Again, looking to Gramsci, we could say that this particular release was not capable of producing a hegemonic siege, as the war in both countries has largely been sanctioned by the world governing body for some time now. While the documents may reveal unpleasantness about the situation, few opponents to the action will find new revelations among the reports indicating behavior they did not already know about, or largely suspect.  Therefore there was little chance the document dump would provide the impetus for a hegemonic crisis.  

The leaked cables, however, have now thrown the once decisive war of position the US enjoyed in the GWOT into a, now, siege mentality that might yet produce conditions suitable for a return to a global hegemonic war of maneuver.  While I seriously doubt that the damage done by the leaked cables will result in a complete realignment of American GWOT principles, it does nonetheless indicate that the position of the US as a global leader in this arena has the potential to erode away.  In an article on the NY Review of Books website, Christian Caryl debates the purpose of Wikileaks release:

Among the cables released so far are revelations that have prompted headlines around the world, but there are also dispatches on Bavarian election results and Argentine maritime law. If the aim is to strike a blow against American imperial designs—as Assange has suggested in some of his writings—I don’t see how these particular cables support it... In practical terms it seems to boil down to a policy of disclosure for disclosure’s sake. This is what the technology allows, and Assange has merely followed its lead. I don’t see morality, or even immorality, at work here at all; what I see is an amoral, technocratic void.

Caryl clearly isn't considering the impact on the hegemonic force underlying the American dedication to the GWOT.  He is correct in stating that the medium and the method are amoral- they are, after all, bits and bytes and no more.  But the intent and the change rendered by their release may indeed do much to reshape the 'American imperial designs', more so than Caryl gives them credit.  While the event continues to unfold and the impacts remain unclear, we could all take a cue from Gramsci and look towards Hegemony for help in understanding the long-term implications.