In These New Times

A new paradigm for a post-imperial world

Posts Tagged ‘retreat from empire’

A way out glimmering in the obscurity

Posted by seumasach on November 12, 2022

Cailean Bochanan

12th November, 2022

Suddenly there are two possible deals emerging: on the one hand, Washington agrees to recognise the four regions which have been incorporated into Russia on the basis of a vote which the West had declared invalid and the Republicans, the GOP, agrees to recognise the result of an election  which the OSCE was not permitted to monitor. The two are logically connected: the USA accepts it’s defeat in Ukraine and at the same time US ruling class pulls together abandoning any semblance of democracy as it negotiates the dangerous rapids of imperial retrenchment.

The problem I have with this scenario is how Russia can accept a rump Ukraine which can still be weaponised as an anti-Russian state. In other words, if they cannot denazify it themselves, how can they trust the Americans to do it for them? The question could be put in another way: is the collective West prepared to denazify itself, to sideline the mad warmongers, the neocon, and address all the Russian concerns expressed before the Ukraine war began? That would be a turn-up for the books!

However, something extraordinary has to happen. If Sullivan has given the Russians an ultimatum not to launch a final, decisive winter offensive then the prospect of nuclear war looms large and terrifying. If the war is allowed to run it’s course, the rout of NATO would have revolutionary consequences for the West- no ruling elite in history has survived anything comparable. If elite survival is the goal then neither of these scenarios is credible and the only remaining option of a fudged compromise, no matter how unlikely, remains the only solution, the only way out of the labyrinth in which the illusory manifest destiny loses itself while the lights go out on the City on the Hill.

Stranger things have happened: who would have imagined that the last Roman emperor Romulus Augustalus would do a deal with the Goths: but it preserved the ascendancy of the Senatorial elite. If elites hang together they  won’t hang separately. The US ruling class has given an object lesson in class solidarity as millions of popular votes disappear. Kali Lake has had to be censured for taking it personally. She should remember that the democracy stuff only ever was talk. But the time for such talk is over. It’s time to walk the walk- and the walk is a retreat.

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America’s ‘Great Retreat’ is well underway

Posted by seumasach on July 30, 2021

Stephen Bryen

Asia Times

29th July, 2021

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Biden losing friends and gaining enemies

Posted by seumasach on April 27, 2021

Biden’s unforced errors are killing America in the grand geopolitical game of the 21st century

Biden appears to represent Trumpism without Trump: the key here may be that all the Joints Chiefs of Staff are Trump appointees and remain at their posts under Biden. Behind all the smoke and mirrors lies the realist current within the USA and nothing could be more realistic than ending America’s extensive network of bases, alliances, covert operations, client states etc., in short ending America’s informal empire. This is necessary work as this empire’s raison d’être, global hegemony, the New World Order is now, more than ever, clearly a chimera. Since retreat from empire contradicts America’s special status it must be carried through covertly, unannounced creating facts on the ground which open the doors to a multipolar world order

Brandon J.Weichert

Asia Times

27th April, 2021

US President Joseph R Biden rose to power promising to restore America’s purportedly ailing alliances. Allies are needed to assist the United States in curbing the rise of China, Russian aggression, and Iranian revanchism. Yet in the last several weeks, the Biden administration has gone out of its way to alienate potential allies across the world. 

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Rows mar NATO’s birthday bash

Posted by seumasach on April 8, 2019

The defeat of the attempted coup by the Clintonites seems to have prompted Trump to return to some his original themes: disdaining NATO and pursuing detente with Russia and China.

M.K.Bhadrakumar

Indian Punchline

5th april, 2019

In his initial remarks with the NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House on April 2, US President Donald Trump charged straight into his pet grievance that America “alone accounts for the vast majority of NATO defense spending ’s spending”. Trump failed to congratulate NATO on its 70th birth anniversary. When Stoltenberg’s turn came, he gently reminded Trump of that 10-letter word — Afghanistan — which is the alliance’s flagship project, and its first ‘out-of-area’ operation. 

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The China trade reality show

Posted by seumasach on December 4, 2018

The rise of China to global economic dominance is indeed unstoppable: the question is whether the USA can engage constructively with China and share to some degree in the success or whether it will fall into 4th world status.

David P.Goldman

Asia Times

4th december, 2018

For at least a month, there has been no doubt that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping would agree to agree at the Buenos Aires summit. The threats, remonstrations and hints of high officials were for the most part scripted. Buenos Aires was less negotiation than reality show.

When the dust settles, America and China will have a deal that allows Trump to claim victory and allows China to become the world’s dominant economy.

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Trump opens way for China deal

Posted by seumasach on December 4, 2018

Cailein Bochanan

4th December, 2018

The G20 summit meeting between Trump and Xi has ended on an upbeat with the declaration a  truce  and a 90 day period in which to consolidate a deal. Xinhua has welcomed  what it describes as a consensus in rather glowing terms

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US can avoid Afghan quagmire with Russia’s help

Posted by seumasach on November 19, 2018

M.K.Bhadrakumar

Strategic Culture

15th November, 2018

The most significant remark made by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the second meeting of the Moscow format consultations on Afghanistan held in the Russian capital on November 9 was when he said, “We must not think in terms of geopolitical games, which can only make Afghanistan an area of international rivalry with grave consequences for the people of Afghanistan and their neighbours.”

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The Art of the Deal worked on Sentosa Island

Posted by seumasach on June 13, 2018

M.K.Bhadrakumar

Asia Times

13th June, 2018

Some statesmen by their sheer force of personality and unorthodox ways of politicking arouse disdain among onlookers. US President Donald is perhaps the most famous figure of that kind in world politics today.

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Trump tries to destroy the West

Posted by seumasach on June 11, 2018

“A secret plan to break up the West would also have the United States looking for new allies to replace the discarded ones. The most obvious would be Russia”

The most obvious would be China. Trump wants the factories back home which means in practice Chinese inward investment: China would invest directly into the USA rather than sell directly. This makes sense of Trump’s tariffs which would otherwise just be destructive. It’s true that the USA has a tradition of developing industry behind tariff barriers but that requires investment. At the end of the 19th century that came largely from Britain: now it can only come from China. At the same time, if the peace process with North Korea is successful China will come out in good light facilitating the above process. Trump has turned the world upside down. Can he put it together again?

NYT

10th June, 2018

The alliance between the United States and Western Europe has accomplished great things. It won two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Then it expanded to include its former enemies and went on to win the Cold War, help spread democracy and build the highest living standards the world has ever known. President Trump is trying to destroy that alliance.

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Putin and Abe agree to move forward on economic cooperation

Posted by seumasach on May 27, 2018

The noisy American retreat from the post-war international system which it itself dominated has opened multiple opportunities for the creation of a new international order and the resolution of geopolitical problems frozen in time. Here we are seeing the possibility of finally getting a Russia-Japan peace treaty for the second world war. Along with the emergence of an independent Europe. the sinking into irrelevance of NATO, the convergence of Germany and Russia /China and the definitive end of the cold war the ground is being laid for the unification of Eurasia, the world island as Mackinder put it. In other words, the end of the Anglo-American maritime empire as they themselves defined it.

Frank Sellers

The Duran

27th May, 2018

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, met in Moscow today to discuss a trio of topics, namely economic cooperation, the North Korea peace agreements that might be in the works, which both parties support, and the Southern Kuril islands issue.

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Deconstructing the sacking of Rex Tillerson

Posted by seumasach on April 2, 2018

“We will never know whether Trump actually intended the denouement we have seen, but he has broken the axis between the state department and the Pentagon by introducing Mike Pompey into the equation as his new secretary of state. Pompey is a political associate of the Tea Party movement who can be trusted to ensure that Trump retains the final word on the US foreign policies, especially on Russia.”

Sure enough, Trump does seem to have created some foreign-policy space for himself – he has just announced the withdrawal of US troops from Syria to the horror of the US media.

M.K.Bhadrakumar

Asia Times

15th March, 2018

The surprising part of US President Donald Trump’s move to sack Rex Tillerson as secretary of state is that it took place a full six months after the latter called him a “f***ing moron” at a Pentagon meeting. Tillerson should have thrown in the towel and walked away then. That’s probably what Trump would have preferred.

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