While the world is grinding under
heavyweight of complex problems including inserted perpetual wars, a
fundamental phase reached a crucial juncture on the geopolitical timeline. 24
years after the collapse of USSR the so-called last superpower of an erstwhile
bipolar world, United States, finally unravelled. Interestingly and in line
with historical precedence, United States, through her institutions and her political
actors overplayed their narrow sectoral benefits beyond the bounds of their
national strategic interest. By subscribing to undermine their president and core
national interest to favour a foreign power, United States political
institutions finally destroyed the last vestige of US strategic continuity and progressive
relevance in global affairs.
Berlin – Yalta – Gorbachev
The sub-heading is a deliberate
device to highlight historical sensibilities for a gone era and for a time whose
history is now deemed fit for manipulation and abuse in many unfortunate western
quarters. The ravages of murderous WW2 opened European space for new
geopolitical realities of which against expectations one of the victims of that
war to the tune of nearly 26 million turned into a victor in her annihilation
of Nazi German Forces. USSR is the victor of WW2 of a very costly victory!
The end of that war by default
left 2 contesting global (ideological) forces standing; USSR and United States.
United Kingdom under Winston Churchill was a regressive appendage of a new
order, a subservient yesterday’s man regrettably lapping up the basis for
unfurling future remora role to be assigned to her by ascendant Washington DC.
Yalta established order which essentially guaranteed among other things the
security concerns of Moscow, a victim of cross-continental attack by Berlin and
earlier 1812 Napoleonic attack.
The basis for geopolitical focus
of Moscow was clear, to obtain a continental buffer against future attacks
which Joseph Stalin spelt out as, “Germany is, as we say, a geographical
concept...Let us define the western borders of Poland, and we shall be clearer
on Germany”. Guaranteeing that western flank from central Europe was
covered and finlandisation secured the northern flank. On these agreements, USSR established a national
security format that steadied for the next few decades.
Internal contradiction of
ideology and inconsistencies in running a global geopolitical machine from
Moscow overwhelmed and Mikhail Gorbachev signed off the Union in 1991 from a
position of weakness rather than approximation of deliberate soft strategy.
Hence the outset of a journey of uncontested hubris, deployment of ill-conceived
full-spectrum dominance and dangerous consequences of unchallenged global power
on a youthful republic, United States.
United States has limited
experience in global geopolitical management and sharing global power for over
4 decades proved insufficient. Remember that Byzantine and Ottoman Empires
respectively stood for longer periods. For comprehensive treatment review
Luttwark The Grand Strategy of the
Byzantine Empire and Mansell Constantinople:
City of the World’s Desire 1453 – 1924.
Full-Spectrum Dominance
United States assumed global
(super) power rather with internal and existential commitment to fear and contradictions
of security concerns despite vivid absence of serious military, economic and
cultural challenges from any part of the world. Apparently geopolitical and diplomatic
offerings from Washington DC coalesced into a military/security paradigm that
reduced the global space into chessboard of states deemed as templates for
power projection especially in areas mistakenly allocated questionable tactical
values. In parallel the domestic space was eliminated as a serious geography of
value infusion rather turned into a staging post for global economic onslaught
through weapons of economic warfare, interest rate evaporation and
financialisation.
It is interesting for the elites
to present irrelevance of US mainland in her geopolitical calculus which is
most vivid in the attacks of 11/09/2001 which not only exposed it but equally
opened a justification for its exposure as inevitable. If the most military
advanced country is exposed with justification by its political actors then
which other (weak) state is safe? Attempts to explain away that incident through
pre-emptive unprovoked attacks on innocent states disguised as endless & perpetual
conflict enterprise remains puerile, fancy and devoid of empirical and
intellectual rigour.
In parallel in view of the new tradition
of perpetual conflict, US domestic space offers a renewed function as
reinforcement post for occasional power projection project validated through
various military bases and warships stations around the world. Therefore the
mainland is a dominated dilapidated space for the elite to levitate against
with all the resources drawn from conflation of corporations and the state
while the rest of the population only clutch on the imposed image of glory on decline.
Loss of Compass
Washington DC misreading of
history remains the single source of its near time incoherence and road to
irrelevance. The zealous attention towards ascribing military solution to every
geopolitical problem undermined her credibility across the board. The fixation
to possess, control and dominate peoples & resources of Arab World with
little dividend continue to dodge its status diametrically. A cursory review of
states and locations in the sub-region only present chaos, bloodshed,
instability, conflict and uncertainty. Sadly other geopolitical powers
abandoned the conflicts for United States and she has miserably failed to
assume full control for either victory or for defeat.
Parallel fixation with diminution
of Moscow continues to ebb and flow. Expiration of colour revolution as a
strategy for military expansion of an (NATO) irrelevant security network only
triggered a new one (SCO) by other concerned players. While correlation between
possible humiliation of Russia and effort to do so is negative, the same
regressive strategies are reinserted with the same results. The idea or strategy
spurn that Russia’s geospatial security concern is open for grabs remains
worrying. Ukraine crisis is another phase of a long practice of regressive
diplomacy with zero-sum mindset and counter-productive result for distant
sponsor and local client apparatchiks.
Capitol Hill Implosion
United States’ Middle East policy
has unravelled. The existential ambiguity between innovating an erstwhile
policy towards a pragmatic dimension and equally managing unruly clients whose
geopolitical raison d’etre leans on zero-sum diet is dangerous when their
sponsor is weak, inchoate, unassertive and indecisive. This is the emerging picture in US attempt on
rapprochement with an assertive Iran with Israel and Saudi Arabia in the background.
The last 2 are lesser powers.
With an inept political class and
elite overdosed on Israel diet, the depth of the influence and weight of
interlocking connections not only compromised internal policy development but
inserts itself to disadvantage US core strategic interest. The fact that the
legislative arm entered into an agreement with a foreign power against the
decision and oversight of the executive branch only conclude the emergence of a
new geopolitical virus. It displays chronic inflexibility to modify positions in a rapidly reconfiguring global geopolitics.
The idea and reality that United
States internal affairs is deliberately led to be hostage of a foreign
government by its own elected representatives is nothing short of consolidation
of treason. While many blind pundits and regressive self-reinforcing analysts
humour on the resilience of US-Israeli relations, US is finally emerging as the
weak link and a weak player in the world. What happened to singular &
unique US exceptionalism?
The process of fuzziness or subordination
of strategic national interest below narrow counterproductive interest by US
political class is a long one. With a long gestation, the outcome which has
gradually taken root will inevitably express its liability in decades to come. What
is the nationality of US elected representatives? There is element of certainty
in terms of policy expectation from immediate future presidents and future
advisers who will dregs of policy developments of the last 3 decades.
Anticipating progressive, nuanced, creative and realistic reading & engagement
with the world as template of US foreign policy in the near term is as pessimistic
as it is irrational.
An incoherent, disunited and
unconsolidated capital cannot be a competent medium of astute diplomacy, a
dependable partner in international relations and a reliable interlocutor in
geopolitical reconfigurations. Beijing, Moscow, Brasilia, New Delhi and Tehran
will be watching with interest and dry smile. This is the most important
geopolitical outcome of the century no matter how much it is played down by western
mainstream media.
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