If there are voices in the corridors of power in the United States of America with nuanced perspectives on the state of America and the world, now is the time to speak and act up in order to save America from itself and for that matter, the world.
The US is in a deep hole dug by its policymakers in the abiding pursuit of dubious glory (greed) which has landed the country in a quagmire both domestically and internationally out of which it is forlornly struggling without success to extricate itself. And rather than heed the admonition that when you are in a hole you better stop digging, the US is stubbornly pursuing the self-deceptive notion of its exceptionalism in a world that no longer believes it to be so and which is presently working to consign America like all global powers before it to the out tray of history.
And what is the nature of this self-destructive crisis that America is presently embroiled in? For an immediate answer look no further than the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
In this war, the twin factors that have for so long proven pivotal in America’s global power projection; the American military machine and the seigniorage of the American dollar have been rendered largely ineffective. Indeed if anything, the American military behemoth always looking for a good war to pummel the heck out of countries it considers ‘’rogue’’ have had to largely sit out the war in Ukraine in the full realisation that any attempt to intervene physically on the side of Ukraine will result in a massive counterpoise from the Russians with serious consequences to the American military position in Europe and globally.
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Under the circumstances the only role which the US military has been uncharacteristically restricted to is that of a proxy; sending platforms into Ukraine helping to train its forces in the use of the platforms and in training the Ukraine forces on intelligence and tactics. But the US and everybody know for a fact that such proxy involvement will not be decisive enough in game-changing the war in favour of Ukraine and the US.
US strategic thinkers know but are not willing to admit publicly that in the Ukraine war theatre and for that matter in Europe, the Russians like in the Second World War can overrun the whole of Europe in a conventional war even with the American forces stationed there.
Although it is in the Ukraine war that the world saw how the American military machine was finally clipped, it was in Venezuela that this development started to take shape. The US had in its usual policy of changing governments that did not agree with it, tried to overthrow the government of President Nicholas Maduro, who had succeeded President Hugo Chavez as president. Maduro, who was vice president during Chavez’s administration, sought to continue the radical anti-American policies of Chavez which drew the ire of the US.
American arrangements to intervene in Venezuela to effect a regime change there was met with a strong counter posture by the Russians which forced the Americans to back down eventually without achieving their desired goal.
Similarly in Syria, America’s robust physical intervention on the side of Syrian forces fighting in the country’s civil war with the undisguised objective of seeking to overthrow the Bashar Assad government was eventually thwarted by an equally robust Russian intervention to support the government forces and the Russian backed government forces led to the withdrawal of American forces in Syria without achieving what they set out to do.
Thus from Venezuela to Syria and to Ukraine, American military interventions, so long a routine instrument in the projection of American power globally, have been progressively checkmated to the point that it is almost ineffective as a foreign policy tool. Within the past decade wherever American strategic interests collide with that of Russia leading to situations of potential and even actual confrontations either Americans emerge second best. As it is now it is getting to the point where the only effective military option left for America to use in achieving its foreign policy goals is the nuclear option which as we know is suicidal.
So all the expensive and complicated military platforms that America currently possesses and projects as instruments for the offensive enforcement of its foreign policy on the global stage, are now on the way to being blunted and in due course will be rendered virtually ineffective.
With the events of the past decade, we have reached the high point of global mutually assured destruction (MAD) in which any attempt at large-scale prolonged military intervention outside of the tacitly defined strategic boundaries of the spheres of interests of the major powers would lead to unforeseen consequences for the aggressor both in the area of such intervention and right inside its territories.
Basically, the days of unchallenged advantages that the American military used to have in intervening to enforce the interests of the United States around the world are getting to an end gradually. In the foreseeable future, those expensive interventionist military toys in the American arsenal would have to be tamed by the current level of strategic parity of major powers to stay at home and be less meddlesome in global affairs.
While it is obvious that the American military is in the process of being clipped as an offensive, interventionist force by global events, one area which will even accelerate the demise of American global power is the current trend of de-dollarization which is fast gaining traction. (To be continued)
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