From its attacks on Global South countries to its willingness to go to war with a great power such as Russia, the U.S. is increasingly employing military force to compensate for its economic decline, writes Vijay Prashad.
LeRoy Clarke, Trinidad and Tobago, “Now,” 1970.
By Vijay Prashad
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
This month, as part of its policy to dominate the American hemisphere, the United States government organized the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.
U.S. President Joe Biden made it clear early on that three countries in the hemisphere — Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — would not be invited to the event, claiming that they are not democracies.
At the same time, Biden was reportedly planning a visit to Saudi Arabia – a self-described theocracy. Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador questioned the legitimacy of Biden’s exclusionary stance, and so Mexico, Bolivia, and Honduras refused to come to the event. As it turned out, the summit was a fiasco.
Down the road, over a hundred organizations hosted a People’s Summit for Democracy, where thousands of people from across the hemisphere gathered to celebrate the actual democratic spirit which emerges from the struggles of peasants and workers, students and feminists, and all the people who are excluded from the gaze of the powerful.
At this gathering, the presidents of Cuba and Venezuela joined in online to celebrate this festival of democracy and to condemn the weaponization of democratic ideals by the United States and its allies.
Next year, 2023, will be the bicentennial of the Monroe Doctrine, when the U.S. asserted its hegemony over the American hemisphere. The malign spirit of the Monroe Doctrine not only continues but has now been extended by the U.S. government into a kind of Global Monroe Doctrine.
In order to assert this preposterous claim on the entire planet, the United States has pursued a policy to “weaken” what it sees as “near peer rivals,” namely China and Russia.
Philip Guston, Canada, “Blackboard,” 1969.
In July, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research — along with Monthly Review and No Cold War — will produce a booklet on the reckless military escalation by the U.S. government against those whom it sees as its adversaries — mainly China and Russia. It will include essays by John Bellamy Foster, editor of Monthly Review, Deborah Veneziale, a journalist based in Italy, and John Ross, a member of the No Cold War collective. In the vein of that booklet, No Cold War has also produced Briefing No. 3, “Is the United States Preparing for War with Russia and China?” on Washington’s sabre-rattling and alarming march toward nuclear primacy.
The war in Ukraine demonstrates a qualitative escalation of the United States’ willingness to use military force. In recent decades, the U.S. launched wars on developing countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Serbia.
In these campaigns, the U.S. knew it enjoyed overwhelming military superiority and that there was no risk of a nuclear retaliation. However, in threatening to bring Ukraine into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the U.S. was prepared to risk crossing what it knew to be the “red lines” of the nuclear armed state of Russia. This raises two questions: why has the U.S. undertaken this escalation, and how far is the U.S. now prepared to go in the use of military force against not only the Global South but major powers such as China or Russia?
Military Force to Compensate for Economic Decline
The answer to “why” is clear: the U.S. has lost in peaceful economic competition to developing countries in general and China in particular.
According to the International Monetary Fund, in 2016 China overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest economy. As of 2021, China accounted for 19 percent of the global economy, compared to the U.S. at 16 percent. This gap is only growing wider, and, by 2027, the IMF projects that China’s economy will outsize the U.S. by nearly 30 percent.
However, the U.S. has maintained unrivalled global military supremacy — its military expenditure is larger than the next nine highest-spending countries combined. Seeking to maintain unipolar global dominance, the U.S. is increasingly substituting peaceful economic competition with military force.
Ikeda Manabu, Japan, “Meltdown,” 2013.
A good starting point to understand this strategic shift in U.S. policy is the speech given by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on May 26. In it, Blinken openly admitted that the U.S. does not seek military equality with other states, but military supremacy, particularly with respect to China:
“President Biden has instructed the Department of Defense to hold China as its pacing challenge, to ensure that our military stays ahead.”
However, with nuclear armed states such as China or Russia, military supremacy necessitates achieving nuclear supremacy — an escalation above and beyond the current war in Ukraine.
Pursuit of Nuclear Primacy
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the U.S. has systematically withdrawn from key treaties limiting the threat of use of nuclear weapons: in 2002, the U.S. unilaterally exited from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; in 2019, the U.S. abandoned the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty; and, in 2020, the U.S. withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty. Abandoning these treaties strengthened the U.S.’ ability to seek nuclear supremacy.
Natalia Goncharova, Russia, “Angels Throwing Stones on the City,” 1911.
The ultimate aim of this U.S. policy is to acquire “first strike” capacity against Russia and China — the ability to inflict damage with a first use of nuclear weapons against Russia or China to the extent that it effectively prevents retaliation.
As John Bellamy Foster has noted in a comprehensive study of this U.S. nuclear build up, even in the case of Russia — which possesses the world’s most advanced non-U.S. nuclear arsenal — this would “deny Moscow a viable second-strike option, effectively eliminating its nuclear deterrent altogether, through ‘decapitation.’ ”
In reality, the fallout and threat of nuclear winter from such a strike would threaten the entire world.
This policy of nuclear primacy has long been pursued by certain circles within Washington. In 2006, it was argued in the leading U.S. foreign policy journal Foreign Affairs that “It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike.”
Contrary to these hopes, the U.S. has not yet been able to achieve a first-strike capacity, but this is due to development of hypersonic missiles and other weapons by Russia and China — not a change in U.S. policy.
From its attacks on Global South countries to its increased willingness to go to war with a great power such as Russia to attempting to gain first strike nuclear capacity, the logic behind the escalation of U.S. militarism is clear: the United States is increasingly employing military force to compensate for its economic decline. In this extremely dangerous period, it is vital for humanity that all progressive forces unite to meet this great threat.
Shefa Salem, Libya, “KASKA, Dance of War,” 2020.
In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Global South remained gripped by a never-ending debt crisis, the United States bombed Iraq despite entreaties from the Iraqi government for a negotiated agreement. During that bombing, the Libyan writer Ahmad Ibrahim al-Faqih penned a lyrical poem, “Nafaq Tudiuhu Imra Wahida” (“A Tunnel Lit by a Woman”), in which he sang, “A time has passed, and another time has not come and will never come.” Gloom defined the moment.
Today, we are in very dangerous times. And yet, the despondency of al-Faqih does not define our sensibility. The mood has altered. There is a belief in a world beyond imperialism, a mood that is not only evident in countries such as Cuba and China, but equally in India and Japan, as well as amongst the hard-working people who would like our collective attention to be focused on the actual dilemmas of humanity and not on the ugliness of war and domination.
Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian, journalist and commentator, is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and the chief editor of Left Word Books.
This article is from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
However, the U.S. has maintained unrivalled global military supremacy — its military expenditure is larger than the next nine highest-spending countries combined. Seeking to maintain unipolar global dominance, the U.S. is increasingly substituting peaceful economic competition with military force.
A new study from the American Physical Society (pre-eminent physicists) concluded that no US “missile defense system thus far developed has been shown to be effective against realistic ICBM threats.”
Current and planned systems are incapable of defending the United States against even a limited attack by North Korea let alone the sophisticated systems used by Russia and China. As an aside, since the report (now removed from the internet) NK has been madly testing nukes and missile delivery systems.
The point is that US cannot, and will not for the next 15 years, be able to defend even itself let alone its allies in an existential war.
The US can no longer become involved in wars itself so it starts them using proxies while the 1% profit from vast arms sales.
The Munroe Doctrine is a business model.
Quote, “Scott Ritter also predicts Biden’s shift in Taiwan policy will trigger a war between China and the U.S.,” Unquote. Given the first hand experiences, we are learning from events in Ukraine, especially the resupply of materiale/weapons/food/fuel/transport mediums, we need to compare these with Taiwan, at the same time, recall the FACT, Ukraine is surrounded by LAND and shares borders with NATO countries, who are being called upon to supply all of Ukraine’s needs to fight their war.
Now, given the above, lets compare Taiwan, surrounded by ocean on ALL sides, basicly a stones throw from Chinese mainland, and a long way from the U.S. of A. On what planet, would the U.S. think it a good idea of waging war with China under such circumstances ? I recall the invasion of Iraq was post phoned until they had all their resupplies in place in surrounding countries, which took just over 6 months. Worse, it was claimed at the time, any war would be over within 14 days, thus all the resupplies were only for that period. History, tells us all, those assurances were WAY off the mark. Given all this information we have been able to gather from such actions committed by the U.S. over the years, what on earth, makes them think they could run another such fiasco on Taiwan ????? The mind really boggles at the stupidity emanatiing from the U.S. these days.
Scott reminds us frequently that a successful military invasion usually requires a three-fold stronger numerical advantage for the attackers, as the defenders are usually well dug in to the most advantageous positions, plus they know the place inside and out. Russia ignored this conventional wisdom, which is why it is taking such a long time for them to overcome the Ukie defenders. It was (at first) the Ukies with a 3-to-1 advantage.
Can you even try to imagine a full out conventional war of American invaders against Chinese defenders? China has a population of 1.5 billion against America’s 330 million. Needless to say the size of the two standing armies is comparable (at least 5-to-1). Moreover, China is a huge country, about the same size as the USA and with equally varied terrain. Even if the US stooped to using nukes to beat down the Chinese army, how could we ever even start to occupy such a large country with such a huge population and so many hiding spots and staging areas for rebellion? The morons in Washington are either totally blowing smoke or they suffer even greater brain damage than anyone ever suspected. The worst they could do to China (aside from annihilating it in a nuclear first strike, for which the courtesy would be returned) would be to play smash and grab like typical street rioters back home in America. They’d just trash the place: blast all the spanking new skyscrapers, amazing high-speed mag-lev trains and nifty new airports, pat themselves on the back and leave the Chinese to pick up the pieces… then rue the day when the Chinese rebuild and cross the ocean looking for vengeance. Washington is acting like some psychopath holding a gun to his own head and screaming at the gathered crowd: “Don’t make me do it! Don’t make me blow my own brains out!”
The US has become a huge ugly and brutal global monster. Morally the American administrations are the pit equal to the Hitler Nazis.
The USA is the only country that has used nuclear weapons on people, lying about the “necessity” for these terrible acts. It then made plans, fortunately not carried out, to nuke every big city in the USSR, its former ally, the real nation to win WW2 while the USA had no civilian damage at all, just profit and pretending ever since it was the winner. Now it has got rid of any restraints, and is “agreement -incapable” anyway, and is willing to have a first strike against Russia, or China, just to show it can, so that the world will be destroyed. The “threat” of Russia and China is their sovereignty. They are NOT trying to rule the world, and want fair international relationships, not the”US rules-based ,I am in charge, do as I say” arrogant wish of the USA, which thinks that spending a lot of money makes your “defense” valuable.
Regardless of the outcome of Washington’s present war on Russia, a total scorched earth conflict on all levels except for the use of Ukrainian proxies rather than American troops, a conflict which holds back nothing by way of armaments or financial backing for the Ukrainian aggressor state supplied by the United States, the next step, baked into the cake I can almost guarantee to you, will be exactly the nuclear first strike against Russia that you are rightfully fearful of, Mr. Prashad.
As the American dictator and his minions made quite clear in one of their many mental gaffes, the purpose of the ongoing conflict is to “weaken” Russia. You see, it does not matter to them one iota whether Ukraine emerges from this conflict with any benefits or with only grievous wounds and setbacks. That last Ukrainian can perish for all they care, but as long as Russia will have been tenderised with a thousand cuts on the battlefield, and perhaps in its internal politics and economy, the warmongering hegemon in Washington will have achieved its ends. It will have i) hobbled Russia militarily, ii) bought time for itself to develop a complete armory of hypersonic nuclear tipped missiles, and iii) forced Nato to foot a large part of the bill and thoroughly commit itself to acting as cannon fodder at the tip of the spear against their Russian neighbors.
All very diabolical, I know, but what does one expect from the Devil himself? Even the pope, who restrained himself from speaking out against fascism throughout Latin American whilst an archbishop in Argentina has publicly recognised Washington as the aggressor in this case.
There may or may not be an interval between the end of the current conflict fanatically pressed by Washington. WWIII may simply be the next inevitable escalation in the spiral of cause and effect deliberately pursued by Washington, or the diabolical Americans may again play one of their many ruses upon the world and cold cock the other side with a first strike when it least expects it–during an ostensible “peace.”
President Putin may or may not still be the man in charge on the other side. No one lives forever. I hope that whomever the Russian power structure and voting citizens choose at some critical point in the future do so wisely. After Putin, I do not know who is available in the Russian talent pool, unlike the American dregs who are all raving insane imbeciles. He or she will have big shoes to fill and the future of the civilised world dependent upon their wisdom.
You should listen to what President Tokaev of Kazakhstan said (in Putin’s presence) in response to the question from Margarita Simonyan as to whether Kazakhstan supported Russia’s operation against Ukraine. Then watch the newly released report on Aleksey Miller and Gazprom; it’s a real eye-opener – and it has English subtitles in case you cannot understand Russian.
Imo, “The Global MAN GONE ROGUE Doctrine,” i.e., Poke’n the Russian Bear, 24/7, The Divided States’ of CORPORATE America’s Biden-Harris White House, “climbed up the volcano’s side, all the way to its rim and are dropping explosives into the red hot and bubbling core.”
Biden-Harris & their Party of War, Democrats & Republicans, have played the central role in preparing a NATO war against Russia for over more than a decade.
“Joe Biden, as a leading Senate voice on foreign policy, as vice president tasked by Obama with running Ukraine policy; and, NOW as president, is deeply implicated in this long-running operation.”
March 2022, “In fact, we started our assistance to Ukraine before this war began.” Joey Biden
WHEN did Joey “Dementia Addled, Truth Challenged” Biden, yell “Go, Nukes!” from his bargain basement, Campaign for POTUS? DID he “promise” to risk a nuclear war w/Russia &/or China?
“Based on intelligence information provided to” Joe “Dementia Addled, Truth Challenged” Biden “by the Pentagon & CIA advisers; HOW MANY hundreds of millions or billions, of people, animal & plant life, do “they” expect will die in the Divided $tates of Corporate America, Central & South America, Canada, Europe, in The World, in a nuclear war w/Russia/China?!?!
IF, the ‘Powers that Be’ are willing to sacrifice the lives of 1 million Americans, per SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Deaths thereto EXCEED ONE MILLION, WHAT qualms do they have about the deaths of millions by “nuclear” warfare.
WHO is the Keeper of the Nuclear Codes? For good reason, POTUS isn’t even the keeper of The Family’s Car Keys; and, his ‘avid’ bike riding is kaput!!! “The Big Guy” f/CRASHED!!! Like Biden’s runaway train, NO Brakes. NO Reverse!!!
Surely, “The Nuclear Codes” are outta his reach.
“The elephant in the room,” is Biden-Harris STILL pack’n Lethal Weapons, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) & perpetual War. The daze of deception, destruction, death by OhBama/Biden, et al, “LIVE.”
If we recognize the connection between the “Global Monroe Doctrine” and the “Project for the New American Century,” it makes a lot more sense out of the 21st century.
@c
“Yet there is no political organization supporting a radical change in U.S. policy”
Actually, yes there are. But, you won’t hear about them from the oligarchs and their vast noise machines. I won’t give an advertisement, but I do know the Trotsky-ite Socialists do exist and do propose radical change in US policy in many areas, including this. So yes, they are generally barred from any broadcast media, and downgraded by google in search results, but there is opposition and an alternative. Thus if you had said ‘there is little political organization’, you would have been much closer to being correct, but the flat ‘no’ was incorrect.
And yes, Mr. Ritter is correct because the whole point of the exercise is the old insane, PNAC plan of preventing the rise of other competitors, with mass death and destruction if necessary. Now that the Cheney’s are officially the left-wing of the Democratic Party, I don’t guess its a surprise that this PNAC plan is still the foundation of an insane policy. It is the rise of China that the western oligarchs fear.
What has occurred so far is only the prelude to the war that they really desire, which is their fantasy of bashing China back into hungry peasants. That almost certainly will fail, but we live in a world where powerful oligarchs deny reality and launch campaigns against knowledge on a daily basis, so they are unlikely to desist from their fantasies on their own accord.
Trotskyites are probably a long shot (for better or worse). Veterans might be a better source of informed opposition to war, e.g. Veterans for Peace (recall the Winter Soldier testimonies by Viet Nam Veterans Against the War and Iraq Veterans Against the War). (I just looked again at ‘Hijacking Catastrophe’ (2004), which is even more disturbing in retrospect.)
The Quincy Institute, with funding from Soros and Koch (!) is promoting a ‘balanced’ approach vs zero-sum military policies. Is there a politician who will listen?
The actual words of President Monroe ….
“The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”
So, standing up for de-colonization and trying to protect, as a new and weak revolutionary state, the other new revolutionary states of the Americas from the powerful and predatory European Kings and Bankers is ‘the original malign spirit of the Monroe Doctrine’?
Personally, I think we need a lot more of such thinking in this modern world. Standing up to predatory powers and bankers and telling them that they are not welcome.
I do know that this has been twisted and abused like every other thing that was originally decent and honorable in the Empire of Lies. I do know that it has since been cited as the right of the Yankees to rain death, destruction and torture upon the hemisphere. But, I do also believe that we should not forget about revolutionary acts of standing up to try to protect others from predatory Europeans and Bankers. Since we desperately need a new era with a revolution of values if we are to save the world, then we should not forget the decent things that revolutionary governments have tried to accomplish in the past. Even it now seems a very distant past.
The Monroe Doctrine had a two-fold purpose. One – De-colonize Central and South America and send the Europeans back home. Two – Use the new power vacuum to implement Uncle Scam’s hegemony in those places on behalf of large energy and fruit (incl. sugar) companies.
If that’s not enough to explain it’s ‘malign’ nature, simply look at every instance where the Monroe Doctrine has been invoked. There was never any well-meaning intent to allow anything resembling a socialist or indigenous led government to spring up and succeed in the Southwestern Hemisphere.
Your cite to Blinken, “President Biden has instructed the Department of Defense to hold China as its pacing challenge, to ensure that our military stays ahead,” really does highlight the perceived ‘need for’ US ‘first strike’ capability. This is as old as Robert Aldridge’s ‘First Strike’ decoding of Raygun’s SDI. ‘Pacing challenge,’ wow. As our old failed pal, Chiang Kai-Shek, was known in D.C. as ‘cash my check,’ merely cranking up the tech for such ability would doom the US taxpayer to perpetual payenne status. RAND’s 5/22 dissertation on same: hxxps://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/FP_20220505_taiwan_strategy_sisson.pdf
pretends to a distinction between ‘denying’ and ‘punishing’ China against our available modes of goading: its ‘executive summary’ posits this bizarre dialectic:
‘What strategy should the United States use to deter China from using force against Taiwan?
Some argue that deterrence requires convincing China that it would lose in a military contest,
a strategy known as deterrence by denial. An alternative strategy, deterrence by punishment,
attempts to convince China that even if it could win, the costs of trying would be so great that they
would outweigh any possible gains.
‘Policymakers should choose a strategy by analyzing its costs and risks, balanced against the
extent of the U.S. interests at stake. This policy brief concludes that the costs and risks of
deterrence by denial are not justified on the basis of U.S. interests. [Despite] compelling reasons to prefer that Taiwan remain democratic and retain its affinity with the West, these outcomes are not so vital as to merit a strategy for which the immediate consequence of failure is high-end war with a nuclear-armed adversary.
‘A strategy of deterrence by punishment, by comparison, is pragmatic. It retains options for U.S.
policymakers even if it fails — it neither produces immediate war, nor precludes a subsequent
decision to go to war either to defend against or to expel an aggressor.’ Get that, Aggressor. Conclusion: ‘So too is there reason for measured optimism that deterrence by punishment will work. The United States has real leverage, and an increasingly resolute set of partners, with which to convince China that aggression will be
enormously costly.’
Look at this long list of ‘uncontrolled’ variables: ‘measured’ optimism, ‘real leverage,’ and ‘an increasingly resolute set of partners.’ These have all proven false assumptions in our Ukraine adventurism. Threats to repeat ‘our’ April freedom-of-navigation demo, by sailing a destroyer through the Taiwan Strait, China’s declared exclusive zone, is the tip of the proverbial spear for WW III. ‘The USS Samson,’ aptly named.
hxxps://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/27/china-angered-as-us-sends-destroyer-into-taiwan-strait#:~:text=The%20US%207th%20Fleet%20said,a%20statement%20after%20the%20event.
RAND’s study is uncannily similar to that of the US Naval Institute’s ‘post-invasion’ speculations about ‘our’ cleanup task: hxxps://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/may/preparing-post-invasion-taiwan-insurgency
A ‘pacing challenge’ for you, Tony Blinken. You may soon need a pacemaker.
This essay btw was above and beyond Mr. Prashad’s usual mere Excellence! Just one more Footnote! Look at this chilling clip again: ‘A strategy of deterrence by punishment, by comparison, is pragmatic. It retains options for U.S. policymakers even if it fails….’ Meaning, more punishment needed. The anti-Kant ‘Essay on Perpetual War’? Some thick crypto-Newspeak here!
Note a leading legal definition of being a ‘Danger to others’: it ‘means that the judgement of a person who has a mental disorder is so impaired that he is unable to understand his need for treatment and as a result of his mental disorder his continued behavior can reasonably be expected, on the basis of a competent medical opinion, to result in serious physical harm.’ hxxps://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/danger-to-others#:~:text=Danger%20to%20others-,Danger%20to%20others%20means%20that%20the%20judgment%20of%20a%20person,of%20competent%20medical%20opinion%2C%20to
We can bypass the ‘harm to self’ part here, and concentrate on ‘others.’ All masculine pronouns above – are there any leftish feminists still around to comment on author Melanie Sisson’s role in the co-equal branch of the Dangerous population? Just as the latest post-school and –church shootings have rebirthed the question of determining the threshold for involuntary psychiatric commitment, why aren’t these Offensive ‘defense’ analysts subject to same? A focus for the ‘peace movement’ or its remnants these days?
Colombia’s recent presidential victory by Gustavo Petro (Jun 19) represents an absolute repudiation of Biden’s Summit of the Americas, as it should have, an event where Colombia’s current president, Iván Duque, betrayed his fellow Latin Americans for a pat on the head by his keeper. Hopefully it is a harbinger of things to come on a global basis.
How so very sad that it has taken this long for so many in this world to come to realize that the US is NOT our friend, that its interests are only its own, hypocritically pretending to act for the benefit of humanity. Empires come…empires go…So long, America – our planet now stands a better chance of living in peace.
US sovereign debt – $30.5T (US treasury)
US GDP (Raw, not adjusted for inflation) $24.4T (Bureau of Economic Analysis – USG)
This is not lookin’ good especially since the sovereign debt part doesn’t include all the recently authorized spending that hasn’t occurred yet.
Bravo!
Thankyou for loudly defining usa idiocy and dishonesty to its citizens in warmongering.
The monroe doctrine is obsolete, murderous and desparate.
Vote against suicidal congressional hawks.
Keep writing.
Outside of the US/UK/EU orbit, credible military observers are projecting
a complete victory for Russia in Ukraine, as well as a defeat for NATO if it attempted to intervene.
Scott Ritter also predicts Biden’s shift in Taiwan policy will trigger a war between China and the U.S.,
which would very probably become nuclear. (hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvVC1VBiWKM )
Yet there is no political organization supporting a radical change in U.S. policy, and certainly no political leaders with
a plan which could benefit America, in sharp contrast to what Putin detailed in his St. Petersburg speech.
( hxxps://voxday.net/2022/06/18/transcript-putins-speech-at-spief/ )
It seems we are in for a miserable future, assuming we survive. But if we do, now is the time
to create new political alliances to attempt to deal peacefully with a multipolar world.