Imperialism within the United States is forward looking. It is not interested in historical issues and claims and decries any attempt to bring them up. Wald acknowledges the Monroe Doctrine but is lying when he suggests the US wouldn't care if China and Mexico formed a partnership.
Overall I
was struck by his hubris and in general the amorality of Imperial thought. Wald
finds the idea that US policy and actions can be questioned or compared with
that of other nations to be offensive. The US is not to be judged or compared.
It stands alone and above all such comparisons.
I thought
the professor was correct. Regardless of what we think of Putin as a person, his
actions are not illogical in any sense, or even aggressive. NATO is not a
defensive alliance. It ceased to be that after the Soviet collapse in 1991. It
is but one of many tools in the American arsenal.
Since 1991
it has represented expansionism. I am ashamed to admit that under then Colonel
Wald I participated in NATO's consolidation of power in Eastern Europe and the
Balkans. Russia was on its knees and could do nothing while NATO established
claims and rights to territories that historically have been within the Russian-Byzantine
orbit. The idea that any European government would refuse conformity to the new
global order was in the eyes of men like Wald a sufficient casus belli.
The Soviet
Union, even the whole of the Cold War was a parenthesis. But even during that
period history did not evaporate. The Soviet Union didn't declare the year
'one' and try and start over. Russia was still very much part of the historical
current. World War II only emphasized this and because of the scale of that
cataclysm there were situations created in Europe that fell beyond the
historical context. In light of history the Cold War was a relatively short
period of time, a blip even. History as it were returned to a normal current in
1991, but Russia was in a state very much as she was after the Crimean War, a
period wherein German unification took place the first time.
The United
States is determined to negate history and not allow the world to return to
historic patterns and spheres. In 1989 and especially in 2001 the United States
all but declared this is the year 'one'... the era of a new global order.
Nations
cannot move against other nations when they're down and expect there to be no
consequence. Gorbachev perhaps the most admirable figure of the Cold War
allowed the mostly peaceful collapse, but that was largely premised on
guarantees... every one of which was broken by the United States during the
decade following the end of the USSR. The ultimate culmination of this betrayal
and aggression was the America's unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in
2002. That sent a clear signal to Moscow. There were no doubts any more.
For an
American general to sit and talk about Westphalian Sovereignty is really beyond
the pale. It strays into the absurd. Since the 1990's, projects like the NATO
expansion and the EU itself are in effect renunciations of Westphalia.
Globalization which was the Imperial model for men like the first Bush and
Clinton undermines state sovereignty.
Wald
criticizes any notion that Russia has a claim to a sphere beyond its borders
but then all but affirms the US has global interests. American global hegemony
rejects all state sovereignty and any notion of international parity. It places
the United States above all laws. This has been the US position since 1945 and
was reiterated with an exclamation point in1989. It was declared with a threat
in 2001. The previous geopolitical lessons of the Panama Invasion and the Gulf
War were not sufficient. September 11 gave the US the final justification for
the full implementation of the globalized Monroe Doctrine.
At the
conclusion of the Cold War the United States became not only the most powerful
country in the world but the most powerful country in the history of the world
and men like Wald want to see that continue. They're heavily invested in it.
But they
would do well to learn from history. Empires don't last. They overreach and
self-destruct.
I do admire Wald on one point... that he agreed to appear on a programme like Democracy Now!.
