Prometheus: The Emergence of the Police State in America

A myth illuminates the changes that have transformed the American state in the years since 9/11. It is the myth of the Greek titan who stole the secret of fire from the gods and was then punished eternally for bringing to birth a new world.

American exceptionalism, its traditional sense of being different from other nations, is bred from the Biblical injunction to be a city on a shining hill and a light unto the heathen, but these days it carries a distinctively pagan inflection. Prominent members of the State and Defense Departments call themselves Vulcans from their conviction that the use of American force is overwhelmingly good and unavoidable (Mann 2004). Neo-conservatism, the most influential intellectual current in American politics today, rejects Catholic just war theories¹ and draws inspiration from Leo Strauss's cryptic interpretations of pre-Christian philosophers (Singer 2004). Individualism, maverick defiance, talent for innovation, belief in the future, and a sense of responsibility for bringing the future to fruition—those traits that Americans most passionately believe about themselves—uncannily evoke the myth of Prometheus.

The story of Prometheus draws on pre-Christian themes to reinvent the dying savior as one who does battle not with evil incarnate—Satan—but with the traditional gods, the Olympians, keepers of law and tradition. Still god-like in capacity, he is no longer the ethical Jewish savior but the heroic Greek, and his mortal enemy is not the law-breaking Lucifer but the establishment on Mount Olympus. Like the trickster god who wrested the secret of fire from Zeus on behalf of humankind, the intellectuals of the New World Order, the new Prometheans, see themselves as using stratagems to wrest the leadership of the world from the old order of international bodies, international law, diplomacy, negotiation, and compromise.

Since overt coercion would be unacceptable and since only a handful of elites can be bribed into complicity by tangible rewards, it is the force of myth-making that allows the state to rewrite detentions and torture outside its boundaries as well as allow repression within it as the inevitable and virtuous operation of the law.

Pagan Inflections

We can identify certain concrete themes in the program of the Prometheans:

• A fascination with advanced technology, not only of weaponry but especially of communication and information
• The exploitation of information networks and the rampant use of psychological operations (psy-ops) and mind-control techniques
• A tendency to secrecy, covert actions, and the creation of extralegal channels
• An emphasis on maneuverability, flexibility, lightness, and speed in the deployment of forces
• A radical reordering of the military that blurs the line between military and civilian functions
• Penetration of the civilian population through the use of guard and reserve forces
• The training of police SWAT teams, and the deployment of covert paramilitary forces
• The embrace of privatization and operational models drawn from business
• An unconstrained and unapologetic symbiosis between business, government, and military
• A nationalist and patriotic rhetoric that is almost religious in tone.

Totality and Secrecy

Analyzed, these disparate elements reveal a pattern—a tendency toward unity and secrecy. Between private and public, civil and military, domestic and foreign, the mental and the physical, even the simulated and the real, boundaries are erased and made seamless through physical restructuring, the financial mechanism of the market, and networks of propaganda. Every part of the Promethean program also tends toward invisibility—from covert operations to the exploitation of far-flung bases, from stealth air strikes to satellite spying in outer space, from nonlethal weaponry and psychological operations to back-room deals, each element is masked. Indivisible and invisible, the state, totally hidden, presents itself as an inevitability and the end of history.

This is the essence of the current revolution in military affairs (RMA) theorized by such futurists as Andrew Marshall. In today's RMA, belief in the centrality of surveillance and the information war...