Developing, Selling, and Implementing the New Technologies of the Global
War on Terror: How and Why Canada?s Military-Security-Development Complex
Supports the Empire of Capital.
Mike Skinner
Wednesday March 31st 2010
12.45-2.45pm
Room 749,
York Research Tower
Canadian military historian Allan English (2005) observes: ?war has been
more or less a functional institution in human society because it provided
benefits for societies that were good at it, although the cost of the
benefits could be high?. Who in Canadian society benefits from the Global
War on Terror considering the high cost of lives and resources?
One significant group that does benefit are the ?over 800 member
companies? of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries
(CADSI) ?who are essential contributors to Canada?s national defence and
security and generate over 10 billion dollars to the Canadian economy
every year?. The owners of defence and security industries and the workers
they employ clearly benefit, but their profits and the tax dollars they
generate are not the only benefits accrued during this war.
Leaders of what Ellen Meiksins Wood (2005) describes as an Empire of
Capital share two existential fears that underlie the abstract threat of
?terror?: how to contain popular unrest and how to contain emerging
imperial-state competitors. Many of the weapons and tactics developed and
field-tested during the Global War on Terror focus on solving these two
?problems?.
Michael Skinner explores how and why Canada?s
Military-Security-Development Complex supports the emerging Empire of
Capital, despite the high cost in lives and resources not only for Afghans
and Canadians but for the countless people around the world affected by
the Global War on Terror.
Michael Skinner is a Researcher at the York Centre for International and
Security Studies (YCISS), and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of
Political Science at York University. In 2007, he travelled throughout
Afghanistan where he listened to Afghans from all walks of life who do not
have a voice in the Western media.
