November 30, 2013
James Petras
The world political economy is a mosaic of
cross currents: Domestic decay and elite enrichment, new sources for greater
profits and deepening political disenchantment, declining living standards
for many and extravagant luxury for a few, military losses in some regions
with imperial recovery in others. There are claims of a unipolar, a
multi-polar and even a non-polar configuration of world power. Where, when,
to what extent and under what contingencies do these claims have validity?
The Decline Of The US...And Everyone Else
Bubbles and busts come and go – but let us
talk of ‘beneficiaries’: Those who cause crashes, reap the greatest rewards
while their victims have no say. The swindle economy and the criminal state
prosper by promoting the perversion of culture and literacy. ‘Investigatory
journalism’, or peephole reportage, is all the rage. The world of power spins
out of control: As they decline, the leading powers declare “it’s our rule or
everyone’s ruin!”
Global Configurations of Power
Power is a relationship between classes,
states and military and ideological institutions. Any configuration of power
is contingent on past and present struggles reflecting shifting correlations
of forces. Structures and physical resources, concentrations of wealth, arms
and the media matter greatly; they set the framework in which the principle
power wielders are embedded. But strategies for retaining or gaining power
depend on securing alliances, engaging in wars and negotiating peace. Above
all, world power depends on the strength of domestic foundations. This
requires a dynamic productive economy, an independent state free from
prejudicial foreign entanglements and a leading class capable of harnessing
global resources to ‘buy off’ domestic consent of the majority.
To examine the position of the United States
in the global configuration of power it is necessary to analyze its changing
economic and political relations on two levels: by region and by sphere of
power. History does not move in a linear pattern or according to recurring
cycles: military and political defeats in some regions may be accompanied by
significant victories in others. Economic decline in some spheres and regions
may be compensated by sharp advances in other economic sectors and regions.
In the final analysis, the question is not
‘keeping a scorecard’ or adding wins and subtracting losses, but translating
regional and sectorial outcomes into an understanding of the direction and
emerging structures of the global power configuration. We start by examining
the legacy of recent wars on the global economic, military and political
power of the United States.
Sustaining the US Empire: Defeats, Retreat,
Advances and Victories
The dominant view of most critical analysts is
that over the past decade US empire-building has suffered a series of
military defeats, experienced economic decline, and now faces severe
competition and the prospect of further military losses. The evidence cited
is impressive: The US was forced to withdraw troops from Iraq, after an
extremely costly decade-long military occupation, leaving in place a regime
more closely allied to Iran, the US’ regional adversary. The Iraq war
depleted the economy, deprived American corporations of oil wealth, greatly
enlarged Washington’s budget and trade deficits and reduced the living
standards of US citizens.
The Afghanistan war had a similar outcome,
with high external costs, military retreat, fragile clients, domestic
disaffection and no short or medium term transfers of wealth (imperial
pillage) to the US Treasury or private corporations. The Libyan war led to
the total destruction of a modern, oil-rich economy in North Africa, the
total dissolution of state and civil society and the emergence of armed
tribal, fundamentalist militias opposed to US and EU client regimes in North
and sub-Sahara Africa and beyond. Instead of continuing to profit from
lucrative oil and gas agreements with the conciliatory Gadhafi regime,
Washington decided on ‘regime change’, engaging in a war which ruined Libya
and destroyed any viable central state. The current Syrian “proxy war” has
strengthened radical Islamist warlords, destroyed Damascus’ economy and added
massive refugee pressure to the already uprooted millions from wars in Iraq
and Libya. US imperial wars have resulted in economic losses, regional
political instability and military gains for Islamist adversaries.
Latin America has overwhelmingly rejected US
efforts to overthrow the Venezuelan government. The entire world– minus
Israel and Washington- – rejects the blockade of Cuba. Regional integration
organizations, which exclude the US, have proliferated. US trade shares have
declined, as Asia is replacing the US in the Latin American market.
In Asia, China deepens and extends its
economic links with all the key countries, while the US ‘pivot’ is mostly an
effort at military base encirclement involving Japan, Australia and the
Philippines. In other words, China is more important than the US for Asian
economic expansion, while Chinese financing of US trade imbalances props up
the US economy.
In Africa, US military command operations
mainly promote armed conflicts and lead to greater instability. Meanwhile
Asian capitalists, deeply invested in strategic African countries, are
reaping the benefits of its commodity boom, expanding markets and the outflow
of profits.
The exposure of the US National Security
Agency’s global spy network has seriously undermined global intelligence and
clandestine operations. While it may have helped privileged private
corporations, the massive US investment in cyber-imperialism appears to have
generated negative diplomatic and operational returns for the imperial state.
In sum, the current global overview paints a
picture of severe military and diplomatic setbacks in imperial policies,
substantial losses to the US Treasury and the erosion of public support.
Nevertheless this perspective has serious flaws, especially with regard to
other regions, relations and spheres of economic activity. The fundamental
structures of empire remain intact.
NATO, the major military alliance headed by
the US Pentagon, is expanding its membership and escalating its field of
operations. The Baltic States, especially Estonia, are the site of huge
military exercises held just minutes from the principle Russian cities.
Central and Eastern Europe provide missile sites all aimed at Russia. Until
very recently, the Ukraine had been moving toward membership in the European
Union and a step toward NATO membership.
The US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership has
expanded membership among the Andean countries, Chile, Peru and Colombia. It
serves as a springboard to weaken regional trading blocs like MERCOSUR and
ALBA, which exclude Washington. Meanwhile, the CIA, the State Department and
their NGO conduits are engaged in an all-out economic sabotage and political
destabilization campaign to weaken Venezuela’s nationalist government.
US-backed bankers and capitalists have worked to sabotage the economy,
provoking inflation (50%), shortages of essential items of consumption and
rolling power blackouts. Their control over most of Venezuela’s mass media
has allowed them to exploit popular discontent by blaming the economic
dislocation on ‘government inefficiency’.
Overall, the US offensive in Latin America has
focused on a military coup in Honduras, ongoing economic sabotage in
Venezuela, electoral and media campaigns in Argentina, and cyber warfare in
Brazil, while developing closer ties with recently elected compliant
neo-liberal regimes in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Panama, Guatemala and the
Dominican Republic. While Washington lost influence in Latin America during
the first decade of the 21st century, it has since partially recovered its
clients and partners. The relative recovery of US influence illustrates the
fact that ‘regime changes’ and a decline in market shares, have not lessened
the financial and corporate ties linking even the progressive countries to
powerful US interests. The continued presence of powerful political allies even
those ‘out of government’ provides a trampoline for regaining US influence.
Nationalist policies and emerging regional integration projects remain
vulnerable to US counter-attacks.
While the US has lost influence among some oil
producing countries, it lessened its dependence on oil and gas imports as a
result of a vast increase in domestic energy production via ‘fracking’ and
other intense extractive technologies. Greater local self-sufficiency means
lower energy costs for domestic producers and increases their competitiveness
in world markets, raising the possibility that the US could regain market
shares for its exports.
The seeming decline of US imperial influence
in the Arab world following the popular ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings has halted
and even been reversed. The military coup in Egypt and the installation and
consolidation of the military dictatorship in Cairo suppressed the mass
national-popular mobilizations. Egypt is back in the US-Israel orbit. In
Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia the old and new rulers are clamping down on any
anti-imperial protests. In Libya, the US-NATO air force destroyed the
nationalist-populist Gadhafi regime, eliminating an alternative welfare model
to neo-colonial pillage but has so far failed to consolidate a neo-liberal
client regime in Tripoli. Instead rival armed Islamist gangs, monarchists and
ethnic thugs pillage and ravage the country. Destroying an anti-imperialist
regime has not produced a pro-imperialist client.
In the Middle East, Israel continues to
dispossess the Palestinians of their land and water. The US continues to
escalate military maneuvers and impose more economic sanctions against Iran
weakening Teheran but also decreasing US wealth and influence due to the loss
of the lucrative Iranian market. Likewise in Syria, the US and its NATO
allies have destroyed Syria’s economy and shredded its complex society, but
they will not be the main beneficiaries. Islamist mercenaries have gained
bases of operations while Hezbollah has consolidated its position as a
significant regional actor. Current negotiations with Iran open possibilities
for the US to cut its losses and reduce the regional threat of a costly new
war but these talks are being blocked by an ‘alliance’ of Zionist-militarist
Israel, monarchist Saudi Arabia and ‘Socialist’ France.
Washington has lost economic influence in Asia
to China but it is mounting a regional counter-offensive, based on its
network of military bases in Japan, the Philippines and Australia. It is
promoting a new Pan Pacific economic agreement that excludes China. This
demonstrates the US capacity to intervene and project imperial interests.
However announcing new policies and organizations is not the same as
implementing and providing them with dynamic content. Washington’s military
encirclement of China is off-set by the US Treasury’s multi-trillion dollar
debt to Beijing. An aggressive US military encirclement of China could result
in a massive Chinese sell-off of US Treasury notes and five hundred leading
US multi-nationals finding their investments in jeopardy!
Power-sharing between an emerging and
established global power, such as China and the US, cannot be ‘negotiated’
via US military superiority. Threats, bluster and diplomatic chicanery score
mere propaganda victories but only long-term economic advances can create the
domestic Trojan Horses need to erode China’s dynamic growth. Even today, the
Chinese elite spend hefty sums to educate their children in “prestigious” US
and British universities where free market economic doctrines and
imperial-centered narratives are taught. For the past decade, leading Chinese
politicians and the corporate rich have sent tens of billions of dollars in
licit and illicit funds to overseas bank accounts, investing in high end real
estate in North America and Europe and dispatching billions to money
laundering havens. Today, there is a powerful faction of economists and elite
financial advisers in China pushing for greater ‘financial liberalization’,
i.e. penetration by the leading Wall Street and City of London speculative
houses. While Chinese industries may be winning the competition for overseas
markets, the US has gained and is gaining powerful levers over China’s
financial structure.
The US share of Latin American trade may be
declining, but the absolute dollar worth of trade has increased several-fold
over the past decade.
MUCH MORE AT LINK including a very interesting
conclusion.
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