International Affairs
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The End of the U.S. Hegemony
President Barack Obama's foreign policy disasters have led to plummeting poll numbers -- into the forties and still dropping. No one, however, should be upset with Obama, because he is only following the program advocated by Liberals for many decades. If America does not like Liberal policies and their inevitable horrific consequences, then America would be wise not to elect Liberals.
At this time, the U.S. plays an ever diminishing role in major world issues from the South China Sea, where the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is threatening U.S. allies, to the oil rich sands of Iraq, so recently watered with the blood of brave Americans. The gutting of our military accompanies the lack of any serious participation in world affairs.
Now, that U.S. power is receding, the question for some is: “what comes next”?
Foreign Affairs, the flagship publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, recently published an article entitled, The Age of Entropy - Why the New World Order Won't Be Orderly, which speculates on what comes after American leadership vanishes.
The author, Randall Schweller, states that “Since the beginning of the 21st century, foreign policy experts have been predicting that the United States' days as global hegemony are coming to a close.”
Schweller goes on to speculate that possibly no one State or group of States will become world leader, and urges his fellow experts to reconsider the very concept of global hegemony. “Rather than asking themselves which country is most likely to replace the United States, they ought to be asking themselves whether the concept of global hegemony still applies in our era.”
It would seem that the long hoped for end of American leadership will lead to global chaos, just as it is happening in Iraq.
While Schweller ends his article on an upbeat, global-human-potential note, the reality of a post-America world is already shaping up, and has little to do with the peace-love-and-human growth mind set.
One of the leading contenders for grabbing at least a piece of America's leadership role is Russia, which is currently engaged in an attempt to absorb its neighbor, Ukraine. For years, both the Russian political oligarchy and a significant segment of the population have yearned for the days of superpower status.
This hot desire for supremacy combines with an intense reverie for the defunct Soviet Union, especially among 18 to 25 year olds. Sharing in the glow of past Soviet glory is Josef Stalin (deceased 1953), former communist dictator and one of the most notorious mass murderers in human history. One manifestation of Stalin's revival is a powerful movement to return the city of Volgograd to its former Soviet name, Stalingrad.
In 2005, Russian president Vladimir Putin declared that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century.” Today, pro-Soviet feeling among the political class is so strong – and public – that elements within the Russian legislature are demanding an investigation into how the Soviet Union collapsed and who was responsible. There were even calls for the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to return to Russia and account for his actions during the last days of the Evil Empire.
As Ukraine struggles to blunt Russian influence within its borders, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has gone a step beyond mere pro-Soviet woolgathering by calling for the recovery of currently independent former Soviet republics. Rogozin's metaphoric language declared that “it's time to gather the stones” which fell from the broken “Soviet rock” following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and other post-Soviet States, you have been warned.
Rhetoric is backed up by increasingly sophisticated military hardware. Russia's rapid modernization program of its armed forces is directed toward making Russia again a military rival to the United States. Russia is projecting its power into the Arctic, expanding its sea and air patrols up to the U.S. coastline, and may establish, according to Defense Ministry head Sergei Lavrov, a number of Russian fleet logistic centers (he refuses to use the term “bases”) in Latin America.
Moscow has decided, however, not to attempt to grab the brass ring of U.S. leadership without help. Russia is in an ever-tightening alliance with the Peoples Republic of China to supplant the United States, and both Moscow and Beijing are quite open about it.
A recent article published on the Russian language Internet site of Moscow's RIA Novosti news agency quoted one “expert” who declared that joint Russian-Chinese military exercises scheduled for 2015 would “prevent” the United States from “controlling the fate of the world,” and would force the U.S. to “play by the same rules” as other nations.
Obviously, playing “by the same rules” means to let Russia take Ukraine and the rest of the Soviet “rocks,” which are, at the moment, independent nations. Playing “by the same rules” also means standing by quietly while the PRC establishes complete control of the South China Sea, conquers Taiwan, and makes client States out of Japan, Philippines, possibly even Australia.
Don't blame Obama for the coming Dark Age of communist domination, he is just one man who happens to be fulfilling the Liberal anti-American dream of generations of those who call themselves Liberals.
This Liberalism is better termed Socialism or Marxism. Every American who votes should ask him/herself: “Is this my dream, or my nightmare?”
We can stand for freedom, or stand by and permit oppression. It's up to us.
Warnings abound that US hegemony is ending...
Foreign Affairs, the flagship publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, recently published an article entitled, The Age of Entropy - Why the New World Order Won't Be Orderly, which speculates on what comes after American leadership vanishes.
The author, Randall Schweller, states that “Since the beginning of the 21st century, foreign policy experts have been predicting that the United States' days as global hegemony are coming to a close.”
Schweller goes on to speculate that possibly no one State or group of States will become world leader, and urges his fellow experts to reconsider the very concept of global hegemony. “Rather than asking themselves which country is most likely to replace the United States, they ought to be asking themselves whether the concept of global hegemony still applies in our era.”
It would seem that the long hoped for end of American leadership will lead to global chaos, just as it is happening in Iraq.
While Schweller ends his article on an upbeat, global-human-potential note, the reality of a post-America world is already shaping up, and has little to do with the peace-love-and-human growth mind set.
One of the leading contenders for grabbing at least a piece of America's leadership role is Russia, which is currently engaged in an attempt to absorb its neighbor, Ukraine. For years, both the Russian political oligarchy and a significant segment of the population have yearned for the days of superpower status.
Rogozin calls for Russia 'to gather back the stones'
In 2005, Russian president Vladimir Putin declared that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century.” Today, pro-Soviet feeling among the political class is so strong – and public – that elements within the Russian legislature are demanding an investigation into how the Soviet Union collapsed and who was responsible. There were even calls for the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to return to Russia and account for his actions during the last days of the Evil Empire.
As Ukraine struggles to blunt Russian influence within its borders, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has gone a step beyond mere pro-Soviet woolgathering by calling for the recovery of currently independent former Soviet republics. Rogozin's metaphoric language declared that “it's time to gather the stones” which fell from the broken “Soviet rock” following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and other post-Soviet States, you have been warned.
Rhetoric is backed up by increasingly sophisticated military hardware. Russia's rapid modernization program of its armed forces is directed toward making Russia again a military rival to the United States. Russia is projecting its power into the Arctic, expanding its sea and air patrols up to the U.S. coastline, and may establish, according to Defense Ministry head Sergei Lavrov, a number of Russian fleet logistic centers (he refuses to use the term “bases”) in Latin America.
Moscow has decided, however, not to attempt to grab the brass ring of U.S. leadership without help. Russia is in an ever-tightening alliance with the Peoples Republic of China to supplant the United States, and both Moscow and Beijing are quite open about it.
Following the game plan for a new Soviet Union
Obviously, playing “by the same rules” means to let Russia take Ukraine and the rest of the Soviet “rocks,” which are, at the moment, independent nations. Playing “by the same rules” also means standing by quietly while the PRC establishes complete control of the South China Sea, conquers Taiwan, and makes client States out of Japan, Philippines, possibly even Australia.
Don't blame Obama for the coming Dark Age of communist domination, he is just one man who happens to be fulfilling the Liberal anti-American dream of generations of those who call themselves Liberals.
This Liberalism is better termed Socialism or Marxism. Every American who votes should ask him/herself: “Is this my dream, or my nightmare?”
We can stand for freedom, or stand by and permit oppression. It's up to us.
Posted June 25, 2014
International News Analysis - Today
An uncompromising weekly analysis of the world situation
Contact T. Westerman at
www.inatoday.com
or P.O. BOX 5182, Rockford, ILL, 61125-0182
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