ABSTRACT
Washington represented the principal guarantor of international private property rights and on-going process of capital accumulation, establishing a global defence shield for a capitalist world under threat from Soviet/communist incursion, which usually transposed into disciplining opposition elements at home. As constantly reiterated throughout the book, Washington's military pre-eminence remains absolutely pivotal to US hegemony. Speaking to Congress on the 11th September 1990 the president declared the crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward historic period of cooperation. The key mechanism to unlocking the Open Door and triggering the associated 'accumulation by dispossession' process that followed was dollar-denominated sovereign debt, which had risen steadily post-OPEC crisis, but ballooned uncontrollably following the Volcker Shock. The LTCM crisis was important, not only because it indicated the interconnectedness and essential unstable nature of the neoliberal/financialization project, but it showed that even the 'heartland' was not immune, seen with more devastating effects in 2008.
