Placing the American Empire in its Present Context

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/24/decline-american-empire-donald-trump/

I found this article too generous in its assessment of the American Empire and the 'good' it does around the world.

I will grant that the Empire does bring a degree of stability and stability can be a good thing. And yet at what cost? And is stability an end? Are a host of grave sins permissible for the sake of stability? Is this not yet another case of the ends justifying the means?

Many of course would say in the realm of international politics that's about as good as you can hope to get.

While that adage may be true in terms of worldly wisdom, we as Christians should be able to come up with something better.

Of course many Christians have wed themselves to the system and thus they are realistically and conceptually incapable of standing back or taking the bird's eye view. Invested in the power struggle and its ensuing machinations they can no longer see the forest through the trees. Only by standing as outsiders and pilgrims can we hope to provide and proclaim truth let alone wisdom. It will not change the world but at least by God's grace it will open eyes.

I do think the author's assessment fails in one very essential point. He envisions a world of American decline and a return to multi-polarity. Okay, that's a possibility. And yet as strange as it seems to me, he almost seems to lament such a development and believes that a unipolar world will somehow bring more peace.

I do not share his assessment with regard to the US being a promoter and defender of liberal values. I think the US has a long and proven record of saying one thing and doing the opposite. Mainstream historians will even grant this to a degree and yet they will dress up such realities in terms of the US 'often takes some time' but 'eventually gets it right'. Or that the US is, 'like a great slowly turning ship. It addresses the waves of the storm but it is slow to react and often sustains damage. But so great is that ship that it eventually rights itself and forges ahead on its indispensable and exceptional path'.

Apart from the question of liberal values, we can focus instead on the more practical consideration of a US world order generating stability. I would simply ask, has it done so since 1945 or 1991? In fact as we take in almost three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the scale and threat of war seems to be intensifying.

I would say this is not only a necessary outcome of American unipolarity but at this point is the outworking of a deliberate design.

American Capitalism is verily in a state of crisis. It has undergone financialisation, it is post-industrial and now with the advent of new technologies the opportunities for oligarchic wealth is greater than ever before. But with this opportunity comes the greatest of dangers. The American and even Western working class are in a state of social decline and crisis and now unrest is in the air. The powers that be are scrambling to throw an iron lid on this simmering cauldron. War serves this purpose and others.

War generates distraction at home and stimulates economic growth. War is an outlet for the poor and disenfranchised. They can serve as cannon fodder and even with a high-tech military, there are still personnel requirements. They can direct their anger at others and not the masters which oppress them and drive them to despair.

War generates instability and creates opportunities. The profiteers profit on the twists and turns and the future expectations of commodities. Rival nations are kept out. Resources are secured and kept as investments for the future. They serve as a type of geopolitical currency.

We are in a state of permanent war and it is by design. This is the great scandal and the great travesty that is 9/11 and everything that came in its wake. The terrorist attacks were the needed catalyst to launch the West and ultimately the world into the next chapter. This is the great generational war, the struggle for oil, water, minerals and markets. This war is either the last of the old order or the first of the new. What will it be? Regardless of which faction sits atop the political pyramid and what tactics and style they wish to employ, the American Oligarchical Establishment has made its decision. This will be an American Century. Europe can ride the wave with them if they do what they're told. The developing world is marked for slavery and the ascendant rival powers must be destroyed.

But how is this done in a nuclear age when the stakes are so high? The war is long, multi-faceted, impossibly complex, total and holistic. Because of its interminable duration it also requires what could be described as the greatest propaganda, fear, bait-and-switch campaign ever conceived. We've been living it.

For the most part it has worked.

And yet in this hyper-accelerated age, the project is waning, or at least it was. I find it convenient that a buffoon now has his finger on the nuclear button. 'Let him do it!' I can hear someone say. The literal fallout will be deadly for Northeast Asia, but the political and economic fallout for the Establishment will be a golden harvest. Repression and aggression will be the order of the day. The crime of nuclear war? 'Oh, that was done by a rogue element. We'll take political and social measures to make sure that doesn't happen again'.

And yet it may not happen. No one can see the future. If that's the case, we can be thankful for it and yet for the Empire, this long term series of sporadic wars, international crises and terroristic attacks on the West may not be enough.

There's little reason to think the American Empire will go quietly and simply liquidate their assets as the British did. And even such a description glosses over the many vicious and brutal episodes that it generated. America will likely go out with a bang.

The American system is like the proverbial shark that can't stop swimming. It's like an airplane. It can't just stop flying. The system itself demands war and expansion. It's already almost killed itself once but through various machinations was able to recover in the 1980s. And yet the recovery was something of a facade and the fact that its Soviet rival collapsed allowed it to assume a narrative of victory, supremacy and invincibility even if those notions were something less than true.

The US has necessarily pursued a policy of aggression to keep the ship afloat and it may be that a wider global conflict is in the works. This may be by design. One thinks of Curtis LeMay who wanted to fight a nuclear war with the Soviets in the early 1960's. He viewed it as inevitable and figured since at that time the US had overwhelming superiority in terms of bombs and missiles... they might as well do it and get it over with. Waiting would only allow the enemy to grow stronger.

Thankfully he and the forces he represented were marginalised and never granted the power they wished to attain.

Likewise today there are those that believe conflict with China is inevitable and they would rather fight that war sooner rather than a couple of decades from now when the US has grown weaker and Beijing has grown stronger.

Others believe the US should wait. China has internal problems. It will not grow stronger but will implode... especially with US help. Thus, continue to finance its enemies, its internal dissenters and do all you can to check and block its progress around the world. This camp would rather pursue a showdown with Moscow which it believes represents the greater threat.

And yet another group believes that the US will push too far. Out of desperation they will engage in brinksmanship and an erupting conflict in a place like Korea, Eastern Europe or the Subcontinent will quickly spiral out of control. What was meant to bolster America's imperial standing will instead bring it down and much of the world with it. They're all for the American Empire but they fear overreach and chaos.

This discussion is far beyond what the Intercept author wished to address but I think his article, in failing to mention the possibility of conflagration, accidental or by design does a disservice to the reader.

Stability is a good thing and the collapse of empires leads to calamity. But what if the collapse has already been underway and the countermeasures have already been initiated? The author speaks in terms of a coming collapse. I think we're already on the next chapter. The players have made their move. The US was put in check and has launched a counter-offensive. She will either win the game bloodied and bruised with her opponents destroyed or she will go down, likely bringing the whole house down with her.