This is a penetrating analysis of the rise of the NWO, whose dependence on military domination helps us understand the determination of the USA and the lesser western nuclear powers to keep their arsenals. The struggle for abolition goes way beyond military considerations!

I have snipped the article, but it's still long, with my apologies. I think you will find it interesting enough to want to read the the original, which is available in the journal or on the web page quoted below. 

                "The Making of the New World Order"
                     (C) Richard K. Moore 1998
               rkmoore@iol.ie,   http://cyberjournal.org
      Originally published in: "Toward Freedom" magazine, May 1998
      email "tfmag@aol.com", web "http://towardfreedom.com",
      a monthly progressive magazine.

The dominant trend of our time is globalization, taking such forms as the elimination of trade barriers, downsized governments, greater reliance on the private sector, reduced regulation of business, and an increasingly global economy. Many people interpret this as economic progress, basically a good thing. But this form of globalization is actually political regression, threatening to destroy democratic institutions and turn the clock of human progress centuries backward to something resembling feudalism.

In some ways, the US is central to the process. It's the leading proponent of free trade, and provides the primary military muscle to shape and maintain global order. When the US president speaks on international issues, his words are taken seriously. He is, after all, the most powerful and influential world leader. Yet, the US isn't the primary beneficiary of globalization, and doesn't appear to be exploiting its advantage in the traditional fashion.

The reason should be obvious: Globalization isn't about competition among nations, but rather about the increasing power of mega-corporations over nations and their peoples. In effect, the US government acts as a proxy for elite corporate interests, not as a representative of its people or even national interests in any traditional sense. Although sovereign national states, sometimes competing and sometimes cooperating, are the Familiar World Order, globalization is leading us inexorably toward a New World Order where mega-corporations (and the wealthy elite who control them) reign supreme, while nations are reduced to a vestigial, subservient, policing role -- as we see in much of the Third World.

~snip

By end of the World War II, the US was very close to total global hegemony. It had the run of the seven seas, an intact military machine and national infrastructure, a monopoly on nuclear weapons, greatly expanded influence in the oil-rich Middle East, and the lion's share of the world's disposable wealth and industrial capacity. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the world was in shambles, deep debt, and/or under occupation. The US had the prestige, power, and resources to guide the construction of post-war arrangements largely according to its own designs.

Rise of the Megacorps
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Following the war, the Western elite, led by the US, drew a line on the globe, separating the part they dominated from the part they didn't. The "free world" (doublespeak for "elite-controlled zone") was organized into a new kind of investment realm, while much of the "free" population was systematically subjected to military dictatorships responsive to elite interests. The doublespeak usage of "freedom," originating during the American Revolution, had been globalized.

Meanwhile, the "communist bloc" (doublespeak for "beyond elite control") was contained: ostracized, pestered around its periphery by provocative military deployments, and subjected to chronic economic destabilization via the "arms race," expensive brushfire engagements, and trade restrictions.

However, rather than using its strength to establish a traditional imperial system, with Europe relegated to a secondary position and Japan kept underdeveloped, the US implemented a bold new global scheme: collective imperialism. Under a Pax Americana military umbrella, an international economic infrastructure was established (IMF, World Bank, et al.). Investment and trade were free to flow, increasingly, around the "free" world, without the territorial partitions traditionally imposed by a competitive European imperial system. For the ex-colonies (soon to be dubbed the "Third World"), the result was domination by the capital elite, rather than the business interests of a single national power.

This semi-homogenized, semi-pacified, investment environment enabled large corporations to develop operations on a global scale. Thus arose the era of megacorps -- mammoth corporations with wealth and influence comparable to nations. Megacorps are much more than simply giant units of economic enterprise, capable of executing large-scale business transactions. They're also significant political and economic powers. Beyond any sense of home-nation loyalty, they view regulations and trade barriers as provincial interference. Their needs and demands are more often than not the hidden agenda behind Western policies.

This is a new species of political entity, in direct competition with its ancestor species, the modern nation state. Born out of limited-liability laws, nurtured by capitalist culture, and lacking any natural sense of limits, megacorps extend themselves like cancer cells, poisoning their host planet in the process. Their motivation is to increase their market value on behalf of their owners.

What would be the nature of a megacorp-governed world? There's no need to speculate: We can simply look at Third-World countries, many of which have been dominated by megacorps for some time. What we see are minimal regulation and taxation of megacorp activities, along with repressive regimes subsidized, armed, and otherwise bolstered by outside elite interests.

The Neoliberal Revolution
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In 1980, a new phase of consolidation was launched simultaneously in the US and Britain, under the stage management of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The platform of the "neoliberal revolution" was lower corporate taxes, reduced corporate regulation, privatization of public services, elimination of international trade barriers, and the self-demonization of democratic political institutions. "The only good government is less government" became the kamikaze agenda.

This amounts to a wholesale transference of power, assets, and sovereignty into megacorp hands, embezzlement on the grandest scale ever attempted. Public lands, rights, responsibilities, and assets are being passed into private hands at undervalued prices -- without effective public oversight. Government itself is being dismantled. By rights, neoliberalism's public leaders ought to be indicted for conspiracy and high treason. Their revolution represents a declaration that nation states are no longer the tools of power, and that megacorps are the primary vehicle for wealth accumulation and organizing global society.

And they're making it clear that First-World nations and their populations are no longer privileged partners in the game. To this end, international arrangements such as the WTO, IMF, World Bank, NAFTA, and GATT have been set up to ensure that economic, social, and political polices can be dictated globally by corporate-dominated commissions. Megacorps and their commissions are controlled directly by the elite. There are no democratic mechanisms and no pretense that they represent the "will of the people." Democracy, the scam which unleashed capitalism, has finally become a direct hindrance to elite hegemony.

A significant difference between the neoliberal and American revolutions is the lack of emphasis on democracy and freedom. Today's promises are related mainly to "opportunity." People are encouraged to assume that democracy is a fact of life, an unshakable institution, secure from any fatal dangers. We're also encouraged to view capital exploitation itself as a sign of democracy, particularly in formerly socialist states. As citizens there suffer under intentionally destabilized economies, megacorps organize exploitative infrastructures. Meanwhile, we're told that the locals are simply "slow to adapt."

Traditionally in "democracies," police forces have been small and order has arisen from the spirit of citizenship. But under neoliberalism, abandonment of public services is depressing satisfaction, while the de-emphasis of nationalist ideology is undermining civic identity and voluntary compliance. The elite understands that, as living standards decline in once-prosperous nations, more economic suffering -- and political discontent -- are inevitable. Not surprisingly, then, police-state systems are growing, and an intense propaganda campaign is underway regarding crime, its causes, and cures. More police, longer sentences, and more prisons are the elite's answer to the question of public order.

The nature of the US penal system is changing. As prison construction becomes the largest growth industry, a formidable capacity is being built. Prisons are literally becoming the concentration camps of the neoliberal regime, places to isolate those redundant to corporate needs. But never wanting to waste an exploitable resource, the elite are also developing an extensive prison-labor system, renting out inmates to fill lower-rung labor needs. This growing network of slave-labor concentration camps has so far escaped public notice. So, too, has its racial and ethnic bias.

The World Cop
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If nations are to be weakened, from where will the armies come to maintain the New World Order? Nationalist spirit has been central to modern war efforts. How can a disenfranchised, betrayed populace be expected to rally "to the defense" when the elite need their support? Who will maintain the infrastructure for weapons systems and delivery? What will be the command structure, and on behalf of what political entity will military operations be carried out? Finally, what about public opinion? The myth of democracy requires that some degree of popular sentiment be roused for dramatic military interventions.

The Gulf "War" and its aftermath demonstrated how the elite plans to deal with some of these problems. The episode set major historic precedents, establishing new paradigms for global propaganda, weapons technology blitzkrieg tactics, and international law. It planted in the global public mind the principle that the US has a justifiable global policing role, and exported to the global stage its traditional war-incident scenario.

Technologically, it was a field test of significant new weapons systems. Precise night operations, stealth defenses, guided weapons, satellite navigation, cruise missiles, bulldozers as mass-murder devices, air-fuel explosives, uranium-weighted shells, anti-nerve gas vaccinations -- an entire new generation of weaponry was tested on a modern, supposedly well-armed, industrial nation. With almost no loss of life in the elite forces, Iraq's infrastructure was systematically destroyed and its population subjected to relentless terrorism.

Technology helps solve the problem posed by the demise of strong nationalism, which formerly provided large, motivated armies. By emphasizing hi-tech weapons, operated from safe havens, and using blitzkrieg tactics, the length of the intervention was minimized, the number of casualties (on the elite side) kept low, and the need for a large, non-professional army reduced.

The war-provoking incident -- Iraq's invasion of Kuwait -- was brought about by Kuwait's economically provocative oil-dumping policy, followed by a "go signal" from the US secretary of state regarding Iraq's invasion. Once the incident occurred, outrage and surprise were feigned, and a world-wide media/lobbying campaign was launched to cajole UN approval of US military action. Saddam Hussein was quickly assigned the role of Hitleresque madman. The US launched a military campaign of its own design, and -- as with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution [the US Congressional approval for a major military build-up in Vietnam, which was later shown to be based on a staged incident] -- UN approval was a blank check, interpreted however the war-leaders wished.

This precedent has established itself very firmly on the media-managed "world stage." Since then, the US has all but been handed the official title of "Judge Dredd" -- -judge, jury, and executioner of international law -- and US intervention is no longer considered imperialism.

Unraveling the Big Lie
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If the New World Order becomes completely operational, overall policies will be set by non-elected, corporate-dominated commissions; the world's economy, information, and working conditions will be managed directly by megacorps; governmental functions will be reduced to administrative matters and police-management. And all this will be enforced globally by an elite-dominated strike force built around the US military and NATO.

The US has a unique role only partly due to its position as the dominant military power. It also reflects the fact that, compared to other FirstWorld countries, it's the most thoroughly captured by megacorp interests. And the US people, in their habitual credulity, are the most effectively mesmerized by media mythology fed them via television. It's almost a "safe house" for NWO operations.

There is only a brief window of opportunity in which First-World populations can reclaim their paper democracies, through intensive political organizing and the creation of broad coalition movements. But such an unprecedented peaceful revolution will only become possible if people wake up to the true nature of the threat. Given the dire consequences of globalization, the widespread acclaim for its steady progress is somewhat remarkable. The credit goes to the sophistication and pervasiveness of the accompanying propaganda campaign, plus the absence of effective forums for alternate perspectives. If a Big Lie is repeated often and loudly enough, people will eventually believe it.

In countering globalization rhetoric, therefore, perhaps the most powerful argument regards the corruption of governments and politicians. Although we're reminded daily of that corruption, we're rarely informed that political corruption is really the illegal intrusion of the corporate elite into the political process. But if enough people realize this, it will no longer be as easy for global corporatization to pose as a "solution" to the problem.