US Empire decline

New cold war? Chinese soldiers march in Moscow on Victory Day, 24th June 2020 © PAVEL GOLOVKIN/​POOL/​EPA-EFE/​ After the long stand-off against communism, victory seemed as total as it was sudden. But the west has since fractured and is now losing prestige and influence – does the reversal expose a moral defeat? Anatol Lieven in the British Prospect Magazine August 31, 2020 We post you this because it is quite extraordinary that a magazine such as Prospect would bring an analysis this devastating for Western policies since the end of the Cold War. Click to read it here as PDF. The authorAnatol Lieven is a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and the author among other books of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism and (with John Hulsman), Ethical Realism: A Vision for America’s Role in the World If you benefitted from this article, please show it...

Image from Wikileaks Jan Oberg September 30, 2020 The unique, dominating position of the United States in the post-1945 world is well-known. It maintains this position thanks to both a very large historical goodwill capital and former glory in the eyes of generations around the world – and thanks to rampant militarism and imperialism that has destroyed the good ‘America’ that it used to be. The world’s major division the next few years will be this: Are you on the side of continued US global dominance or do you want to see a new multipolar world with more balance and the US in the role of a partner among equals? In my view, the US no longer has the capacity to lead itself effectively and find solutions to its own multi-dimensional crisis be it the economy, democracy, climate change, warfare addiction, social polarization, racism and on top of it all...

Tom Switzer September 25, 2020 CIS Executive Director, Tom Switzer interviews John Mearsheimer and Kishore Mahubani to ask Has China Won? At a time when tensions are running high, CIS Executive Director Tom Switzer asked Has China Won? Our debate between John Mearsheimer and Kishore Mahbubani, two of the world’s leading foreign policy intellectuals. Covid-19 has greatly raised tensions between China and the West. Washington and its allies express outrage at the Communist regime’s opacity concerning the outbreak of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, fears are growing that a pandemic that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan may end by increasing Beijing’s international influence and power. Kishore Mahbubani is author of Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (just out, PublicAffairs) A former Singaporean ambassador to the United Nations (twice), he was the founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He was a guest of...

Photograph Source: Pete Souza, White House Official Photograph – CC BY 2.0 Eric Draitser September 15, 2020 The scorching desert sun streams through narrow slats in the tiny window. A mouse scurries across the cracked concrete floor, the scuttling of its tiny feet drowned out by the sound of distant voices speaking in Arabic. Their chatter is in a western Libyan dialect distinctive from the eastern dialect favored in Benghazi. Somewhere off in the distance, beyond the shimmering desert horizon, is Tripoli, the jewel of Africa now reduced to perpetual war. But here, in this cell in a dank old warehouse in Bani Walid, there are no smugglers, no rapists, no thieves or murderers. There are simply Africans captured by traffickers as they made their way from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, or other disparate parts of the continent seeking a life free of war and poverty, the rotten fruit of Anglo-American...

A demonstrator raises a fist after clashes with police in the US city of Seattle on 8 June (AFP) As calls for racial justice reverberate across the country, the field of American Studies requires a radical rethink – namely, the active engagement of people around the globe at the receiving end of US militarism.  By Hamid Dabashi September 15, 2020 “The majority lives in the perpetual practice of self-applause, and there are certain truths which the Americans can only learn from strangers or from experience.”  – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America “Americans are the unhappiest they’ve been in 50 years,” according to recent polls. “It’s been a rough year for the American psyche.”    The deeply troubling presidency of Donald Trump has led to severe consequences of the coronavirus pandemic in the US, where the per-capita mortality rate is among the highest in the world, exacerbated by claustrophobic despair over lockdowns and social distancing, alongside...

Chinese students in U.S. universities are increasingly becoming the collateral damage of the ongoing China-U.S. friction. The University of North Texas (UNT) recently became the first American university to cut ties with the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) resulting in the expulsion of 15 Chinese visiting researchers. Beijing has criticized the decision, calling it yet another example of the U.S.’s sabotage of people-to-people exchanges. Meanwhile U.S. President Donald Trump is weighing a blanket restriction on Chinese students from studying in the U.S., according to reports. China has been the largest source of international students in U.S. for over a decade. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump’s “unpredictable policies” have already reduced Chinese demand for a U.S. education. Beijing-based Dutch educator and a proponent of cross-cultural competence – and TFF Associate – Gordon Dumoulin sees the latest UNT action as part of the larger decoupling trend between the U.S. and China. “The radical...

Designer: Yu Jiansu at CGTN.com Martin Powers September 4, 2020 Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – On the left, there is widespread agreement that Trump’s immigration policies are informed by white supremacist doctrines. His travel ban on Middle Eastern nations was racially charged, not to mention restricting aid to Puerto Ricans ravaged by a hurricane. Combined with the utter absence of sympathy for families of murdered Americans, it would appear that race connects the dots in this administration’s policy puzzle, yet Trump-team’s hysterical China-bashing is often accepted as a legitimate response to an existential threat. Can we be certain that race plays no part in that drama? Originally posted on Informed Comment on August 29, 2020. Many recognize crude name-calling, like “Kung-flu,” as racist, but apart from that, a common give-away is contempt for outstanding performance by members of supposedly inferior groups. Kamala Harris is too “ambitious” (for a...

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) holds talks with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province, June 10, 2018. (Xinhua/Ding Lin) August 31, 2020 By Niranjan Jose The relationship between China and Iran has been in the spotlight recently. A huge, 25-year deal is reportedly being considered that would see $400 billion of Chinese investment in Iranian energy and transport infrastructure. The deal is the latest effort by Beijing to expand from a regional hegemon into a global power through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which aims to reshape regional economic topographies in its favour. Beijing has ostensibly undertaken to make such a massive investment in key sectors of Iran’s economy in return for an assured supply of Iranian fuel for the next 25 years. The proposed investment is the biggest China has ever pledged to any country as a part of the BRI and envisages huge expenditure in building Iran’s...

Pepe Escobar August 26, 2020 Let’s start with the story of an incredibly disappearing summit. Every August, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) converges to the town of Beidaihe, a seaside resort some two hours away from Beijing, to discuss serious policies that then coalesce into key planning strategies to be approved at the CCP Central Committee plenary session in October. The Beidaihe ritual was established by none other than Great Helmsman Mao, who loved the town where, not by accident, Emperor Qin, the unifier of China in the 3rd century B.C., kept a palace. 2020 being, so far, a notorious Year of Living Dangerously, it’s no surprise that in the end Beidaihe was nowhere to be seen. Yet Beidaihe’s invisibility does not mean it did not happen. Exhibit 1 was the fact that Premier Li Keqiang simply disappeared from public view for nearly two weeks – after...

August 24, 2020 Michael Wong Vice President of Veterans For Peace, Chapter 69 America vs. China: “A Clash of Civilizations” Hillary Clinton famously said, “’I don’t want my grandchildren to live in a world dominated by the Chinese.”   During his tenure, President Obama launched his “Pivot to Asia,” moving 60% of US naval power to bases surrounding China, developing the Trans Pacific Partnership treaty specifically to economically isolate China, making Air-Sea Battle the official US doctrine explicitly to contain China militarily, and announcing boldly that his aim was to contain China’s economic rise.  Not surprisingly, China reacted with alarm. The Cold War was long over, China’s economic rise was a peaceful one, it had no aggressive intentions towards the US or anyone, and prior to Obama’s “Pivot to Asia,” relations had been stable and tension low, China argued. Such arguments from China, however, were dismissed by US leaders.    Originally published at peacepivot.org...

Photo: U.S. President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai toast, Feb. 25, 1972. (White House/Wikimedia Commons) A rant by Mike Pompeo regarding what the U.S. should do with China led to a fruitful exchange between an old China, and an old Soviet hand, writes Ray McGovern. August 24. 2020 Ray McGovern Quick. Somebody tell Mike Pompeo. The secretary of state is not supposed to play the role of court jester — the laughing stock to the world. There was no sign that any of those listening to his “major China policy statement” last Thursday at the Nixon Library turned to their neighbor and said, “He’s kidding, right? Richard Nixon meant well but failed miserably to change China’s behavior? And now Pompeo is going to put them in their place?” Originally published at consortiumnews.com Yes, that was Pompeo’s message. The torch has now fallen to him and the free world. Here’s...

Here’s what a new President ought to do in the first two weeks to put the US on a fundamentally new course, not the least in terms of White House dignity and a new foreign policy Andrew Bacevich Assume Joe Biden wins the presidency. Assume as well that he genuinely intends to repair the damage our country has sustained since we declared ourselves history’s “Indispensable Nation,” compounded by the traumatic events of 2020 that demolished whatever remnants of that claim survived. Assume, that is, that this aging career politician and creature of the Washington establishment really intends to salvage something of value from all that has been lost. If he seriously intends to be more than a relic of pre-Trump liberal centrism, how exactly should President Biden go about making his mark?Here, free of charge, Joe, is an action plan that will get you from Election Night through your first...