Category Archives: Geopolitics

The Greater Great Depression: The Slippery Slope Started by Reagan.

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Sylvester J. Kowalski, May 9, 2020

The poor economy that has been lurking in the background is now “front-and-center”.  The COVID-19 pandemic has given the economy a shove over the abyss – into the black hole of economic depression.  Today, the unemployment rate, adjusted for those who left the economy completely, is 21%.  In comparison, the peak unemployment in the Great Depression of the 1930s was 27%.  What’s going on?  How did this all start?

This all started in 1941 when the elite concluded that the post-World War II economy will be a militaristic, imperialist economy.  And so it was. The 1950 Korean war and the Cold War against the Soviet Union celebrated the beginning of the costly, new U.S. imperial empire.  Now, the U.S. could not afford this costly empire.  To finance the empire, the U.S. monetized the Federal deficit.  Monetizing  the debt gradually devalued the U.S. dollar which at that time was backed by gold.  Foreign exporters were getting flooded with dollar reserves to the point that De Gaulle’s France massively exchanged dollars for U.S. gold.  In 1971, President Nixon had to forbid further dollar-gold exchanges, and so we had the end of the Bretton Woods agreement. This step by the U.S.  brought the 1970s economic stagnation and the high 15% annual inflation rate.  President Reagan “solved” the twin problems by introducing “Reaganomics” or more accurately known as “voodoo” economics.  He concluded  that the cost of empire could be paid with U.S. government issued bonds, and that the infusion of debt would so accelerate the economy that the net effect will be positive.  He was a liar.

During his 1980s presidency, we had a recession which had devastated residential property prices.  In 1989, I was able to purchase a very desirable home in Moorestown, N.J. for a considerable discount.  But, a few years later, just around the corner from us, very large, custom homes were being built and sold.  Why the sudden prosperity?  Of course, the answer is that it came from the easy money policies introduced with Reagan’s “voodoo” economics.  And, the easy money continued, and the empire started more wars.  Then came the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis.  The U.S., and the world, found that it had reached peak credit (debt).  The U.S. economy came to the end of the line.  It could not continue living on debt.  It needed to reform its economy.  But to accomplish the necessary reform, the U.S. would have to abandon its vast empire. And, begin the task of re-industrialization, or better stated, become self-sufficient.  Following a reform program would also substantially reduce the U.S. standard of living.  Reform was anathema to the U.S. elite, and instead of reform the U.S. embarked on a “kick-the-can” approach.  Mountains of more and more debt.  And, here we are with the 2020 Greater Great Depression.

A small example of the distortion that came about from Reagan’s “voodoo” economics comes from my family’s experience with higher education.  I am a 1951 graduate at was then Drexel Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering.  Drexel had a co-op program in which after the freshman year, the student spent half of each year in a paying industry assignment.  My co-op earnings easily paid for my five years at Drexel.  Granted, I did live at home.  My son, Vince, also graduated  from Drexel University with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in the early 1980s.  After Vince began his co-op assignments, he became financially self-sufficient.  Out of his co-op earnings, Vince paid all of Drexel expenses and his share of the apartment that he and two others rented.   With the explosive growth in Drexel tuitions since the early 1980s, I have serious doubts that today’s Drexel engineering co-op can duplicate Vince’s financial independence.  And, isn’t the high cost of healthcare analogous?  Reagan’s “voodoo” economics massively distorted our economy.  An easy money economy has consequences, and, the consequence we have today is the Greater Great Depression.

 Rotislav Ishchenko in 2015 wrote Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana’s Apologists (http://thesaker.is/time-is-running-out-for-pax-americanas-apologists/ ).  He described the U.S. problem, and what had to be done to save the U.S. economy.  The following are some quotations from his essay.

“The paradox of the current global crisis is that for the last five years, all relatively responsible and independent nations have made tremendous efforts to save the United States from the financial, economic, military, and political disaster that looms ahead. And this is all despite Washington’s equally systematic moves to destabilize the world order, rightly known as the Pax Americana (“American peace”).

Since policy is not a zero-sum game, i.e., one participant’s loss does not necessarily entail a gain for another, this paradox has a logical explanation. A crisis erupts within any system when there is a discrepancy between its internal structure and the sum total of available resources (that is, those resources will eventually prove inadequate for the system to function normally and in the usual way).

There are at least three basic options for addressing this situation:

  1. Through reform, in which the system’s internal structure evolves in such a way as to better correspond to the available resources.
  2. Through the system’s collapse, in which the same result is achieved via revolution.
  3. Through preservation, in which the inputs threatening the system are eliminated by force, and the relationships within the system are carefully preserved on an inequitable relationship basis (whether between classes, social strata, castes, or nations).

The preservation method was attempted by the Ming and Qing dynasties in China, as well as the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan. It was utilized successfully (in the 19th century) prior to the era of capitalist globalization. But neither of those Eastern civilizations (although fairly robust internally) survived their collision with the technologically more advanced (and hence more militarily and politically powerful) European civilization. Japan found its answer on the path of modernization (reform) back in the second half of the 19th century, China spent a century immersed in the quagmire of semi-colonial dependence and bloody civil wars, until the new leadership of Deng Xiaoping was able to articulate its own vision of modernizing reforms.

This point leads us to the conclusion that a system can be preserved only if it is safeguarded from any unwanted external influences, i.e., if it controls the globalized world.

The contradiction between the concept of escaping the crisis, which has been adopted the US elite, and the alternative concept – proposed by Russia and backed by China, then by the BRICS nations and now a large part of the world – lay in the fact that the politicians in Washington were working from the premise that they are able to fully control the globalized world and guide its development in the direction they wish. Therefore, faced with dwindling resources to sustain the mechanisms that perpetuate their global hegemony, they tried to resolve the problem by forcefully suppressing potential opponents in order to reallocate global resources in their favor.

If successful, the United States would be able to reenact the events of the late 1980s – early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and the global socialist system under its control allowed the West to escape its crisis. At this new stage, it has become a question of no longer simply reallocating resources in favor of the West as a collective whole, but solely in favor of the United States. This move offered the system a respite that could be used to create a regime for preserving inequitable relationships, during which the American elite’s definitive control over the resources of power, raw materials, finance, and industrial resources safeguarded them from the danger of the system’s internal implosion, while the elimination of alternative power centers shielded the system from external breaches, rendering it eternal (at least for a historically foreseeable period of time).

The alternative approach postulated that the system’s total resources might be depleted before the United States can manage to generate the mechanisms to perpetuate its global hegemony. In turn, this will lead to strain (and overstrain) on the forces that ensure the imperial suppression of those nations existing on the global periphery, all in the interests of the Washington-based center, which will later bring about the inevitable collapse of the system.”

Mr. Ishchenko’s concluding words:

“However, we can say with absolute certainty that there is a certain window of opportunity during which any decision can be made. And a window of opportunity is closing that would allow the US to make a soft landing with a few trade-offs. The Washington elite cannot escape the fact that they are up against far more serious problems than those of 10-15 years ago. Right now the big question is about how they are going to land, and although that landing will already be harder than it would have been and will come with costs, the situation is not yet a disaster.

But the US needs to think fast. Their resources are shrinking much faster than the authors of the plan for imperial preservation had expected. To their loss of control over the BRICS countries can be added the incipient, but still fairly rapid loss of control over EU policy as well as the onset of geopolitical maneuvering among the monarchies of the Middle East. The financial and economic entities created and set in motion by the BRICS nations are developing in accordance with their own logic, and Moscow and Beijing are not able to delay their development overlong while waiting for the US to suddenly discover a capacity to negotiate.

The point of no return will pass once and for all sometime in 2016, and America’s elite will no longer be able to choose between the provisions of compromise and collapse. The only thing that they will then be able to do is to slam the door loudly, trying to drag the rest of the world after them into the abyss.”

In 2020, Rostislav Ishchenko’s wrote The End of an Empire dated March 25, 2020.https://www.stalkerzone.org/the-end-of-an-empire/    He further wrote on the above theme.  Again, some quotations.

 ”It happens that empires collapse suddenly, being quite viable (like the Russian Empire in 1917). It happens that empires disappear after many decades (and even centuries) of excruciating agony (like the Western Roman Empire in 476). But if the empire collapses, two conditions must always coincide: an acute global crisis, which the empire cannot resolve at the expense of domestic means alone, and the inability or unwillingness of imperial power to adapt to the crisis through the necessary reforms.

The West (the United States and its first-line vassals: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the EU) has long refused to recognise that the global imperial space it created is in systemic crisis. At worst, periodic economic crises were recognised, but the main thesis was that crisis events would pass quickly, growth would resume, and the results of the temporary recession would be quickly offset.

This was a lie. Since the mid-1980s, with Reagan’s administration (with his famous “Reaganomics”), US leaders have been well aware that the possibility of further expanding production through the development of new markets and the inclusion of new resources has been exhausted. Free markets and free resources on planet Earth are over. In fact, Reagan’s idea (which gave rise to “Reaganomics”) was to finance the current needs of the United States from the pocket of future generations through a monopoly on the printing of the dollar (already back then the currencies of international settlements).

It was assumed (by the way, quite rightly) that the United States and the USSR were equally exhausted by the Cold War and economic confrontation. The one who could last longer would win. The USSR could last longer. The US no longer had free resources for economic growth. The money of future generations pumped into the economy has started to create bubbles that have been bursting since the beginning of the new century in front of us. But they were enough to last until Gorbachev and his perestroika. The leadership of the USSR then correctly defined the need for reforms, but they were carried out completely ineptly – it’s not by chance that people still call these reforms deliberate sabotage. Indeed, it is hard to believe such an outstanding intellectual failure of a superpower’s top leadership. Yes, there were clear traitors in Gorbachev’s entourage. But the primary things in the collapse of the USSR is still foolishness and unprofessionalism. Without the foolishness and unprofessional nature of the first persons, the traitors could do nothing.

After an unexpected deafening victory over the USSR, America urgently needed to roll back “Reaganomics” and return to a normal economic model. But firstly, banks and exchanges had already tasted easy money. Household loans for household needs generated unprecedented demand that spurred sales and production. Everyone was living well, and no one wanted to give up their unearned benefits. Secondly, and most importantly, the Western economy of the 1950s-1970s still lacked (as was already said) free markets and free resources. It was necessary to start reforms ― reorganising the West, but nobody knew how exactly to create a new steady global economic model without at the same time sacrificing western hegemony. In the event that reforms were abandoned, stimulating demand with cheap but unsecured credit remained the only way to prolong the existence of the cash model.”

Mr. Ishchenko’s concluding paragraphs:

“Euro-oriented” countries like Ukraine will lose much of the West’s attention and support. When the usual world order collapses, when resources are lacking for urgent needs, it’s not time for games in the backyard of the empire, and even more so in someone else’s backyard. Ukraine, like other weak links in the global system, is the first candidate for being dumped as ballast. The West won’t kill it on purpose. It just won’t be able to help it survive anymore.

As for Russia, difficult times are also waiting for us. After all, we were part of the West’s global empire from 1991 to 2005 (at least until 2008). Over the past ten years (especially since 2014), Russia has distanced itself from the Western system, but many ties have remained intact, and the well-being of the Russian economy is still directly dependent on the state of the world economy. We cope with the crisis easier, but it’s still a crisis, not a Sunday picnic. In addition, we do not yet know whether the coronavirus epidemic will cover us and how destructive it will be (if it is) to the national economy.

However, it can be stated that Russia has the largest safety margin in the world. It is the only one with a self-sufficient economy to survive in a state of complete autarky. As is always the case during global systemic crises that destroy empires, the one who lasts longer will survive. The safety margin is very important for this. But the history of the collapse of the USSR has shown that it is equally important to realise the need to stand up. It is possible (although not always necessary) to make peace with a former enemy after it has surrendered to us, not after we have surrendered to it.

As a result of the current systemic crisis, we will certainly see the end of an empire. There is every reason to believe that it will be the empire of the West. But nothing is done by itself, and in order not to be a “victim of circumstances”, there is still a lot of effort to be made.“

Mr. Ishchenko clearly tells us why we are now facing the Greater Great Depression.  I suggest reading in full both of his essays.  For obvious reasons, this topic is a “no-no” for U.S. analysts.

Some Thoughts on A.J.P. Taylor’s The Origins of the Second World War

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Update – April 8, 2019.

In December2013, A.J.P. Taylor’s The Origin of the Second World War appeared as the thesis most likely in regard to the origin of World War II.  Mr. Taylor, a highly regarded historian, and lived through the pre-World War II period.  Today, April 8, 2019, in the Unz Review appeared an article written by John Wear in January 26, 2018.  This article, with many citations, concludes that Franklin D. Roosevelt was the prime cause of World War II.  The major citations are from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs documents captured by German forces in 1939 from the Ministry’s archives before they could have been destroyed.  “The German Foreign Office published the Polish documents on March 29, 1940.”  This German publication was known in the United States, and it is unbelievable that Mr. Taylor did not take the German publication into account when he wrote his book.  While Mr. Wear’s article is historical revisionism, it has a powerful message and cannot be ignored.  Let us wait and watch!

Original article.

24 December2013

A.J.P. Taylor’s The Origins of the Second World War, in my opinion, strongly contrasts with the majority of historians in regards to British culpability in the outbreak of this war.

When it came to Poland (after Czechoslovakia and Austria were occupied by Germany), Hitler’s objective was an alliance with Poland. Joseph Beck, Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, believed that as long as he could keep the Danzig affair in the forefront, he could finesse Hitler’s offer of a German-Polish alliance, and, by so doing, “preserve Polish independence. Amid a great deal of rumors and provocations, Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, drafted assurances (March 30,1939)to the Polish Government:

“If…. any action were taken which clearly threatened their independence, and which the Polish Government accordingly felt obliged to resist with their national forces, His Majesty’s Government and the French Government would at once lend them all the support in their power.”

Taylor continues:

“That afternoon Beck was discussing with the British ambassador how to implement his proposal of a week earlier for a general declaration, when a telegram from London was brought in. The ambassador read out Chamberlain’s assurance. Beck accepted it “between two flicks of the ash of his cigarette”. Two flicks; and British grenadiers would die for Danzig. Two flicks; and the illusory great Poland, created in 1919 [the Versaille treaty], signed her death warrant. The assurance was unconditional: the Poles alone were to judge whether it should be called upon. The British could no longer urge Poland to co-operate with Soviet Russia. Germany and Russia were regarded in the West as two dangerous Powers, dictatorial in their governments , ruthless in their methods. Yet from this moment peace rested on the assumption that Hitler and Stalin would be more sensible and cautious than Chamberlain had been – that Hitler would continue to accept conditions at Danzig which most Englishmen had long regarded as intolerable, and that Stalin would be ready to cooperate on terms of manifest inequality. These assumptions were not likely to be fulfilled.”

“The British had no practical means with which to fulfill their assurance; it was a declaration in words only. Translated into practical terms, it could only be a promise that the French would not go back on their alliance with Poland, as they had done in Czechoslovakia.”

Most Germans had an “indelible grievance against [the] Versailles” treaty regarding the loss of German territory to Poland. While Danzig and a corridor linking East Prussia to Germany was important, Hitler had to do something about the loss of territory. In October 1938, Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, discussed these aspects with Lipski, the Polish ambassador: “If Danzig and the corridor were settled, there could then be a ‘joint policy towards Russia on the basis of the Anti-Comintern Pact.” When Beck visited Hitler in January 1939, Hitler elaborated, but Beck did not respond. It was common knowledge that Poland aspired the territory of the Soviet Ukraine so that an alliance with Germany aimed toward the Soviet Union was consistent with Germany’s aims.

After the British alliance with Poland was known by others, the policies of France, Italy, Russia and Germany changed: “The Germans planned to dissolve the Anglo-Polish alliance; the Russians to exploit it. The French and the Italians both dreaded its implications for themselves and sought, in vain, a way to escape.” Chamberlain, with his alliance offer to Poland, created a monster.

“Was Polish obstinacy then the only thing which stood between Europe and a peaceful outcome? By no means. Previously Danzig might have been settled without implying any upheaval in international relations. Now it had become the symbol of Polish independence; and, with the Anglo-Polish alliance, of British independence as well. Hitler no longer wished merely to fulfill German national aspirations or to satisfy the inhabitants of Danzig. He aimed to show that he had imposed his will on the British and on the Poles. All parties aimed at a settlement by negotiation, but only after victory in a war of nerves.”

Chamberlain, with his Anglo-Polish alliance, blundered into an eventual war unless Britain and Poland agreed to Hitler’s demands. Negotiation without war was no longer possible. Poland was adamant and would not agree to Hitler’s demands. Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, and this was the first phase of World War II. Britain “sleep-walked” the West into a World War with Germany. This was a war that was won neither by Germany nor the West, but by the Soviet Union. Poland and a good part of Germany were controlled by the Soviet Union after Germany surrendered in 1945.

What should Chamberlain have done in March of 1939? In my opinion, a prudent approach would have been for Britain to disengage from the German-Polish problem once it became clear that Poland had no intention of negotiating with Hitler. Britain should have left the Germans and Poles to resolve their differences between themselves. Further, if the final result was an attack on Poland by Germany, Britain should mobilize itself, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands into a defensive military alliance to protect Western Europe from Germany. By doing this, a German-Polish war might be limited to Central and Eastern Europe. Any expansion would have been because of aggressive German or Soviet Union aspirations. Hitler in 1939 did not feel confident of attacking the Soviet union without help. Neither before September 1, 1939 nor after the German victory over Poland did the Soviet Union show any signs that it wanted to start a war with Germany. After the conclusion of the German-Polish war, Hitler likely would concentrate on the South – Romania, Hungary, and the Balkan countries, and, also the Scandinavian countries.

While history shows that wars are caused by aggressive Hitler-type leaders, history also shows wars are started by blundering, stupid statesmen, such as, Chamberlain.

The Seven Contradictions Facing the United States

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Sylvester J. Kowalski. November 3, 2018

The seven contradictions currently facing the U.S.:

  1. The federal debt. When will it implode?
  2. The high fiscal deficit due to the military program, and the belief that this deficit is sustainable. When will it not be sustainable?
  3. The high trade deficit due to the decades long de-industrialization. The trade deficit is being sustained by debt. How long can this go on?
  4. The high stock market capitalization versus the high U.S. corporate debt. A recent example is General Electric’s near bankruptcy due to its high debt. In all reality, GE’s problems are the result of asset stripping by its executives. How long is this fantasy market sustainable?
  5. The U.S. belief that it is the world hegemon, but, in reality, China is the world economic superpower and Russia is much more powerful militarily. While not admitting that this is the case, the U.S. is well aware that it no longer is the world hegemon. The trade wars, the “Russia is destroying the U.S.”, and the drive to leave the INF treaty are the U.S. responses to its dilemma.
  6. Trump’s infantile belief that he can re-industrialize the U.S. by invoking tariffs on its competitors. Re-industrialization can only be accomplished by blood, sweat, and tears. Re-industrialization has a cost, and that cost must come from the hides of Americans.
  7. The Pentagon believes it can regain its military superpower status by leaving the INF treaty and then successfully blackmail Russia with a threat of (or actual) limited nuclear strike with new intermediate nuclear missiles.. Russia likely will neutralize this threat by installing nuclear missiles in Cuba, and all aimed at the U.S.

How long can the U.S. continue functioning with all of these contradictions? There is no easy answer. Likely, the key issue is the federal debt, and the stability of the U.S. Treasury bond market. The availability of foreign buyers and the maintenance of low interest rates are likely key. Interest rates are rising, but whether this is a trend is something unknown by other than central bankers.

 

 

 

US Imperialism

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Sylvester J. Kowalski, October 24, 2018

David Harvey’s The New Imperialism is a must-read to get an understanding of the US’s method of imperialism and its concurrent actions in capital accumulation. In the first several chapters, he outlines the US imperialism and especially capital-accumulation, since 1870. The purpose of imperialism is to facilitate capital accumulation. Crisis occurs when capital-accumulation is stymied, such as in the 1846-1850 (in Europe), during the US Civil War, and during the 1930s US Great Depression. At the beginning of the 2000s, the US embarked on the Middle East ‘War on Terror’ to rejuvenate its need for capital-accumulation, but, during this period, two significant competitors began their long quest of standing in the way of US hegemony: China and Russia. Until 2015, when Russia entered the Syrian war on Syria’s behalf, and until China about 2015 announced, its Belt Road Initiative, the US ignored both of these powers. Currently, the US cannot extract capital from either Russia or China, and, as a consequence, is going through a crisis. The US in response is using economic (sanctions, tariffs against China, etc.), political shouting, and military (all kinds of military threats including a first nuclear strike against Russia, all to no avail.

China now has an economy, when based on purchasing power parity, greater than that of the U.S., and will begin to extract capital from other countries as Belt Road Initiative continues. Russia for its part has been successful in economic growth in Russia and its successful global trade. Now with the Saudi Arabia, Russia formed OPEC+ which has, since its inception, balanced oil supply and demand, and consequently stabilized oil prices. Its goal is oil at $65 to $70 a barrel. US stupidity has increased the oil price to $80 a barrel because of US sanctions on Iran, instigating political problems in Venezuela, and destroying Libya. Obviously Trump is livid, and is demanding that Saudi Arabia increase oil production. What is important is that Russia is now controlling oil prices. The US now has little influence on this important commodity.

The US is now in a crisis relative to its inability whether by economic, political, or military means to continue capital accumulation because Russia and China have stymied this US process.

 

The Death of the U.S. Empire

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Sylvester J. Kowalski, July 12, 2018

David Harvey in his book The New Imperialism (OUP Oxford, Kindle Edition) importantly explains the economic complexity of the United States. The following quotation introduces us to this complexity.

“Imperialism is a word that trips easily off the tongue. But it has such different meanings that it is difficult to use it without clarification as an analytic rather than a polemical term. I here define that special brand of it called ‘capitalist imperialism’ as a contradictory fusion of ‘the politics of state and empire’ (imperialism as a distinctively political project on the part of actors whose power is based in command of a territory and a capacity to mobilize its human and natural resources towards political, economic, and military ends) and ‘the molecular processes of capital accumulation in space and time’ (imperialism as a diffuse political-economic process in space and time in which command over and use of capital takes primacy). With the former I want to stress the political, diplomatic, and military strategies invoked and used by a state (or some collection of states operating as a political power bloc) as it struggles to assert its interests and achieve its goals in the world at large. With the latter, I focus on the ways in which economic power flows across and through continuous space, towards or away from territorial entities (such as states or regional power blocs) through the daily practices of production, trade, commerce, capital flows, money transfers, transfers, labour migration, technology transfer, currency speculation, flows of information, cultural impulses, and the like.”

In the following quotation, Mr. Harvey introduces us to a concept that is foreign thinking to most of us – “….. recognizing the compelling need felt on the part of business interests in the United States to keep as much of the world as possible open to capital accumulation through the expansion of trade, commerce, and opportunities for foreign investment.”

“It would be hard to make sense of the Vietnam War or the invasion of Iraq, for example, solely in terms of the immediate requirements of capital accumulation. Indeed, a plausible case can be made that such ventures inhibit rather than enhance the fortunes of capital. But, by the same token, it is hard to make sense of the general territorial strategy of containment of Soviet Power by the United States after the Second World War—the strategy that set the stage for US intervention in Vietnam—without recognizing the
compelling need felt on the part of business interests in the United States to keep as much of the world as possible open to capital accumulation through the expansion of trade, commerce, and opportunities for foreign investment.“

“With these insights, we can more readily understand the 21st century imperialism of the United States. A sovereign country is a barrier to this “open” imperialism, and we can begin to understand the U.S. aggression to independent countries, such as, Cuba, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Turkey, Iran, Russia, and China. These countries are, or had been before U.S. aggression, sovereign countries.”

A contradiction arose between bourgeois nationalism and imperialism – no outlets for surplus capital. As Mr. Harvey states:

“The underlying contradiction between bourgeois nationalism and imperialism could not be resolved, while the rising need to find geographical outlets for surplus capitals put all manner of pressures on political power within each imperialist state to expand geographical control. The overall result, as Lenin so accurately predicted, was fifty years of inter-imperialist rivalry and war in which rival nationalisms featured large. Its essential features involved the carving up of the globe into distinctive terrains of colonial possession or exclusionary influence (most dramatically in the grab for Africa of 1885 and the Versailles settlement after the First World War, including its partitioning of the Middle East between French and British protectorates); the pillaging of much of the world’s resources by the imperial powers; and the widespread deployment of virulent doctrines of racial superiority; all matched by a total and predictable failure to deal with the surplus capital problem within closed imperial domains, as seen in the great depression of the 1930s. Then came the ultimate global conflagration of 1939–45.”

After 1945, the global economy became stabilized. Mr. Harvey states:

“The period from 1945 to 1970 was, then, the second stage in the political rule of the bourgeoisie operating under global US dominance and hegemony. It brought a period of remarkably strong economic growth to the advanced capitalist countries. A tacit global compact was established among all the major capitalist powers, with the US in a clear leadership role, to avoid internecine wars and to share in the benefits of an intensification of an integrated capitalism in the core regions.”

The stable period ended about 1970. The U.S. excess of “guns and butter” was the cause.

“This second stage in global rule of the bourgeoisie came to an end around 1970 or so. The problems were multiple. First there was the classic problem of all imperial regimes—overreach. The containment of (and attempt to subvert) communism proved rather more costly than expected for the United States. The rising costs of the military conflict in Vietnam, when coupled with the golden rule of never-ending domestic consumerism—a policy of guns and butter—proved impossible to sustain, since military expenditures provide only short-run outlets for surplus capital and generate little in the way of long-term relief to the internal contradictions of capital accumulation. The result was a fiscal crisis of the developmental state within the United States. The immediate response was to use the right of seigniorage and print more
dollars.”

Further:

“This system has now run into serious difficulties. As in 1973–5, the causes are multiple, though this time the volatility and chaotic fragmentation of power conflicts within political-economic life make it hard to discern what is happening behind all the smoke and mirrors (particularly those of the financial sector).”

“Either new arenas of profitable capital accumulation (such as China) must be opened up, or, failing that, there will have to be a new round of devaluation of capital. The question becomes: who will bear the brunt of a new round of that devaluation? Where will the axe fall? The trend towards ‘regionalization’ within the global economy then appears more worrying. Echoes of the geopolitical competition that became so destructive in the 1930s begin to be heard. US abandonment of the spirit if not the letter of the WTO rules against protectionism by the imposition of tariffs on steel imports in 2002 was a particularly ominous sign.”

“A major faultline of instability lies in the rapid deterioration in the balance of payments situation of the United States.”

Mr. Harvey explains the ramifications (or, better yet: the consequences) of the past financialization of the U.S. economy.

“But the hegemony and dominance of the United States is, once more, under threat, and this time the danger seems more acute. Its roots lie in the unbalanced reliance upon finance capital as a means to assert hegemony. Historically, Arrighi (following Braudel) points out, financial expansions indicate ‘not just the maturity of a particular stage of development of the capitalist world-economy, but also the beginning of a new stage’. If financialization is a likely prelude to a transfer of dominant power from one hegemon to another (as has historically been the case) then the US turn towards financialization in the 1970s would appear to have been a peculiarly self-destructive move. The deficits (both internal and external) cannot continue to spiral out of control indefinitely, and the ability and willingness of others (primarily in Asia) to fund them is not inexhaustible.”

Rather than attack the root cause of the problem, the U.S. embarked on a program of manipulation in order to maintain hegemony.

“As Gowan remarks: ‘Washington’s capacity to manipulate the dollar price and to exploit Wall Street’s international financial dominance enabled the US authorities to avoid doing what other states have had to do: watch the balance of payments; adjust the domestic economy to ensure high levels of domestic savings and investment; watch levels of public and private indebtedness; ensure an effective domestic system of financial intermediation to ensure the strong development of the domestic productive
sector.’ The US economy has had ‘an escape route from all these tasks’ and ‘by all normal yardsticks of capitalist national accounting’ has become ‘deeply distorted and unstable’ as a result.”

All that the manipulation succeeded in doing was to prolong the agony (or, “kick the can down the road”). The U.S. first had a recession in 2001, and, then, a financial crisis in 2008. To solve the 2008 crisis, the Federal Reserve drove interest rates to near zero and embarked on a massive Qualitative Easing – a euphemism for infinite printing of money.

And, an economic hegemon did come forward – China. First, China’s economy on a Purchasing Parity basis exceeded that of the U.S. Then, China began the Belt and Road Initiative which will allow China to be the global economic leader. Further, it started China 2025 whose goal is to be the global technological leader in ten technological areas. All of this terrifies the U.S., and we now see some very amateurish actions by the Trump administration to somehow contain China’s economic rise. It has started a global trade war which somehow is to reverse the past U.S. economic blunders.

The mistake that U.S. made was to de-industrialize after 1970. Now, the only solution, and a very painful solution, is to re-industrialize. The U.S. consumes more than it produces. Economically, a successful country produces more than it consumes. Re-industrialization is the only answer for the U.S. As of today, the U.S. economically is in a much lower position than China.

Today, the U.S. is, militarily, in second place to Russia (see Andrei Martyanov’s brilliant analysis in Losing Military Supremacy The Myopia of American Strategic Planning. Clarity Press. Kindle Edition.), and, economically, it is it least in second place to China. This is the consequence of the U.S. political elite’s incompetence ever since 1945.

The U.S. Empire is in shambles, and we can hear it’s death-rattle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Is The United States Showing So Much Anger At Russia?

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Sylvester J. Kowalski, November 29, 2017

The anger of the United States noticeably started in 2014, made a step increase in 2015, and starting in 2016 has now reached a crescendo. The short answer is that Russia has bested the U.S. in the monetary world, diplomatically, militarily, and geo-politically. The specific’s are as follows:

 

  1. Since 2014, Russia has not contributed to the U.S. reserve currency welfare fund. Russia must sell its oil, natural gas, and uranium for US dollars, but since early 2014, immediately exchanges its US dollars for Fort Knox gold. Russia is foiling the reserve currency welfare fund scam.
  2. The U.S. had visions of grandeur when it accomplished the coup in Ukraine. Russia promptly annexed the Crimea, and by so doing, controlled Sevastopol and its major Black Sea naval base. The U.S. major objective was to control the Crimea.
  3. Russia stopped the U.S. sanctioned aggression in Georgia. The U.S. impotently watched Georgia get a bloody nose from Russia.
  4. Russia’s support for Syria in 2015 has precipitated a major reduction of U.S. influence in the Middle East. The U.S. lost its proxy war in Syria. With Iran’s help, Iraq has regained its sovereignty and now U.S. influence is almost gone. Because of the Syrian war, Iran and Hezbollah have become major actors in the Middle East. Because of U.S. mistakes, Turkey has now joined Russia and Iran as the major players in the Middle East. Prior to the Syria debacle, the U.S. controlled southwest Asia, and, therefore, had a means of controlling the Eurasian heartland. Russia, Turkey, and Iran now control southwest Asia. CENTCOM sits impotently in Qatar watching all of this.

 

A tired-out United States is now left with the tired-out European Union (NATO) and the impotent Japan to project power on the Eurasian continent. Clearly, these assets are inadequate. Now, The U.S. empire is quickly moving towards impotence.

 

I think that the United States has good reason to be angry, but this anger will not change the global reality.

Russia’s Hybrid War Against The United States: Which Economic Option Do You Want? A voluntary ‘soft landing’, or, an imposed ‘hard landing’? (Open letter from Russia to the United States.)

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February 8, 2016:

Rotislav Ischenko, President of Centre for System Analysis and Forecasting (Kiev) currently living in Moscow, wrote an article entitled “Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana’s Apologists” which was published in the Oriental Review on November 11, 2015.(http://orientalreview.org/2015/11/11/time-is-running-out-for-pax-americanas-apologists/) Mr. Ischenko stated:

“The paradox of the current global crisis is that for the last five years, all relatively responsible and independent nations have made tremendous efforts to save the United States from the financial, economic, military, and political disaster that looms ahead. And this is all despite Washington’s equally systematic moves to destabilize the world order, rightly known as the Pax Americana.”

Mr. Ischenko states that “A crisis erupts within any system when there is a discrepancy between its internal structure and the sum total of available resources (that is, those resources will eventually prove inadequate for the system to function normally and in the usual way). And, that the system is faced with three options: reform, collapse, or through preservation. He states, as quoted above, that the United States has ignored for the last five years facing up to the fact that it no longer has the “financial, economic, military, and political” resources to be the world’s hegemon, and the “Russian-Chinese approach has made a point of offering Washington a compromise option that endorses the gradual, evolutionary erosion of American hegemony, plus the incremental reform of international financial, economic, military, and political relations on the basis of the existing system of international law.”

Mr. Ischenko concludes his open letter as follows: “But the US needs to think fast. Their resources are shrinking much faster than the authors of the plan for imperial preservation had expected. To their loss of control over the BRICS countries can be added the incipient, but still fairly rapid loss of control over EU policy as well as the onset of geopolitical maneuvering among the monarchies of the Middle East. The financial and economic entities created and set in motion by the BRICS nations are developing in accordance with their own logic, and Moscow and Beijing are not able to delay their development overlong while waiting for the US to suddenly discover a capacity to negotiate.

The point of no return will pass once and for all sometime in 2016, and America’s elite will no longer be able to choose between the provisions of compromise and collapse. The only thing that they will then be able to do is to slam the door loudly, trying to drag the rest of the world after them into the abyss.”

From December 13, 2013, the Accumulation/Distribution line for the SPDR Gold Trust Shares (GLD) on the NYSE has been advancing in a positive manner. The GLD (SPDR Gold Trust Shares) price has continued trending down along a trend line that goes back to October 1, 2012, and in late January 2016 broke through to the up-side.. Clearly, a divergence between price and accumulation. This divergence between strong accumulation and never-ending lower prices is un-explainable. All of this can be seen on the GLD price chart shown in the link: http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=GLD&p=W&yr=3&mn=6&dy=0&id=p11244689691&a=444655238

Oriental Review published Grandmaster Putin’s Trap written by Dmitri Kalinichenko ( http://orientalreview.org/2014/12/25/grandmaster-putins-trap/ ) on December 25, 2014, and, which is, referenced in Rotislav Ischenko’s Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana’s Apologists. One year before the English translation date, the “smart money” began its accumulation. This group, with its superior intelligence gathering, was aware of what Russia and China were doing relative to selling their dollars received from trade for gold and were purchasing gold via the GLD ETF.

Grandmaster Putin’s Trap states:

“Thus, the Western world, built on the hegemony of the petrodollar, is in a catastrophic situation. In which it cannot survive without oil and gas supplies from Russia. And Russia is now ready to sell its oil and gas to the West only in exchange for physical gold! The twist of Putin’s game is that the mechanism for the sale of Russian energy to the West only for gold now works regardless of whether the West agrees to pay for Russian oil and gas with its artificially cheap gold, or not.

Because Russia, having a regular flow of dollars from the sale of oil and gas, in any case, will be able to convert them to gold with current gold prices, depressed by all means by the West. That is, at the price of gold, which had been artificially and meticulously lowered by the Fed and ESF many times, against artificially inflated purchasing power of the dollar through market manipulation.

Interesting fact: the suppression of gold prices by the special department of US Government – ESF (Exchange Stabilization Fund) – with the aim of stabilizing the dollar has been made into a law in the United States.

In the financial world it is accepted as a given that gold is an antidollar.

  • In 1971, US President Richard Nixon closed the ‘gold window’, ending the free exchange of dollars for gold, guaranteed by the US in 1944 at Bretton Woods.
  • In 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin has reopened the ‘gold window’, without asking Washington’s permission.

Right now the West spends much of its efforts and resources to suppress the prices of gold and oil. Thereby, on the one hand to distort the existing economic reality in favor of the US dollar and on the other hand, to destroy the Russian economy, refusing to play the role of obedient vassal of the West.

Today assets such as gold and oil look proportionally weakened and excessively undervalued against the US dollar. It is a consequence of the enormous economic effort on the part of the West.

And now Putin sells Russian energy resources in exchange for these US dollars, artificially propped by the efforts of the West. With which he immediately buys gold, artificially devalued against the U.S. dollar by the efforts of the West itself!”

 Grandmaster Putin’s Trap summarizes as follows:

“The Western economic establishment can see and understand the essence of the situation. Leading Western economists are certainly aware of the severity of the predicament and hopelessness of the situation the Western world finds itself in, in Putin’s economic gold trap. After all, since the Bretton Woods agreements, we all know the Golden rule: “Who has more gold sets the rules.” But everyone in the West is silent about it. Silent because no one knows now how to get out of this situation.

If you explain to the Western public all the details of the looming economic disaster, the public will ask the supporters of a petrodollar world the most terrible questions, which will sound like this:

How long will the West be able to buy oil and gas from Russia in exchange for physical gold?

And what will happen to the US petrodollar after the West runs out of physical gold to pay for Russian oil, gas and uranium, as well as to pay for Chinese goods?

No one in the West today can answer these seemingly simple questions.

And this is called “Checkmate”, ladies and gentlemen. The game is over.”

Henry Kissinger’s recent visit with President Putin appears to be round 1 of the Rockefeller interests to find a Russian-US compromise as a response to Ischenko’s Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana. It’s likely a non-starter since Kissinger’s approach for a New World Order was more a United States-Russian partnership with the United States as the senior partner and Russia a junior partner.

If so, we can look forward to a U.S. economic collapse in 2016.

 

 

 

 

Crimea: The End of the Line for the American Empire

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Crimea: The End of the Line for the American Empire S.J. Kowalski, March 25, 2014

The recent Crimean fiasco has changed the geo-political landscape. It is now official – the US is no longer the lone superpower. The world is now officially multi-polar and the US is only one global power along with Russia and China. Why does the Crimean fiasco demonstrate that the US is no longer the sole superpower? It is quite simple: the US does not have the “guts” to engage Russia in a war. The US Ukraine plan had the following objectives: kick the Russians out of the Sevastopol naval base; install missiles directed towards Russia; install an anti-missile defense system to support a nuclear first strike against Russia; and to steal whatever wealth that Ukraine has. The US organized coup of February 21, was executed for these reasons. Immediately after the coup, Russia decisively took control of Crimea and, by so doing, nullified all of the US’s military objectives vis-à-vis Ukraine. In response, what did the US do? It sat with its thumb in its mouth and continued gazing at its navel. If the US were indeed the world’s lone superpower, as it ceaselessly trumpets, it would at that point have massively confronted Russia militarily. It did not; its so-called Full Spectrum Dominance is nothing but an empty threat. The United States does not have the “guts” to militarily confront Russia. In 19th and 20th century European history no country has been able to control Europe without, at the same time, being a military powerhouse.

The presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belazvezha Accords on December 8,1991 the effect of which dissolved the Soviet Union. From this point on, the United States stole Russian wealth and extended NATO to its borders. Despite numerous US assurances to Gorbachev, NATO was extended into the Baltic states, and to Lithuania, and Poland. Numerous attempts to extend NATO into the Ukraine and Georgia were pushed back by Russia. The capstone of the US’s theft of Russian wealth was to be the 2003 proposed sale of Yukos, Russia’s leading oil producer to ChevronTexaco, by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, but by this time Vladimir Putin was installed as President and stopped the sale. Later, Yukos assets were sold to oil companies owned by the Russian government. Essentially, Yukos was nationalized. This was the beginning of Russia’s pushback to the US’s imperialistic objectives, and was also the beginning of the West’s hatred of Vladimir Putin. The United States lost its opportunity to control a large portion of Russia’s vast oil wealth.

It is clear, that the minimum objective of the United States and NATO is to encircle Russia with offensive weapons and forces. Its maximum objective likely is to destroy Russia. At the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy, Vladimir Putin remarked as follows:

“I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: “the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee”. Where are these guarantees?”

Nothing has changed. The drive to enfeeble and/or destroy Russia has continued. The present Ukraine crisis is the latest manifestation of the West’s provocation of Russia. But, unfortunately for the West, the Ukraine provocation turned into a massive “cock-up”. The plan for the Ukraine coup was deeply flawed; it was implemented by a motley crew of EU and US incompetents; and, the final result was Vladimir Putin’s successful integration of Crimea into Russia.

Since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, the objective of the United States has been to control Russia along with its previous control of the European Union. In the case of Russia, the United States will not succeed. Neither does it have the requisite military machine, nor does it have the requisite “guts”. The last country that came very close to controlling Europe was Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Adolf Hitler had the necessary “guts” to challenge the Soviet Union, and almost succeeded. Unfortunately for Hitler, he was opposed by Joseph Stalin and Marshall of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov each having at least the “guts” of Hitler. Stalin and Zhukov liberated Europe by defeating Hitler and his Third Reich. Since Vladimir Putin has the “guts” of Stalin and Zhukov, and since neither the United States nor the European Union have the same “guts” as Adolf Hitler, the US and the EU will never have the capability to control Europe, and never will. Prior to the Crimean vote, Russia placed troops along Ukraine’s borders in preparation for any NATO military action aimed at Russia. Also, on the Friday prior to the Crimean vote, Russia sent four strategic bombers on 24-hour Arctic patrol. Putin, in effect, told the West that Russia is prepared to respond to any type of military provocation. Shortly thereafter, the West announced that no military action will be taken vis-à-vis the Ukraine.

Quo vadis? Whither goest thou? In an interview on March 30, 2014, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated what Russia’s bottom-line is:

“I confirmed the validity of the proposal we made a while ago, pertaining to the necessity to implement all of the issues registered in the Agreement of the 21 February and signed by Yanukovich, Yatsenyuk, Tyagnibok, Klitchko and Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and Poland. First and foremost, order has to be restored in all cities, all illegal weapons must be surrendered, all buildings that have been taken over illegally must be released, all barriers from streets and squares must be removed, and there must be no more “Maidans” or “mini-Maidans.”

Once these obvious steps aimed at restoring normal law and order are undertaken, the constitutional reform process should be started immediately, which is something that has also been captured in the Agreement of the February 21. We are convinced that the success of this reform can only be ensured by participation of all political forces and movements representing all areas and regions without exception, and each of them must have an equal decision-making opportunity within the framework of these negotiations.

We are convinced that it would be impossible to work out solutions to all of Ukraine’s problems without a unanimous agreement on the introduction of the federal form of government in Ukraine. Each region needs to have the opportunity to elect directly its local authorities, the executive branch and the governors, and to have all the rights and needs of its citizens satisfied across all spheres, including economy, finances, culture, language, social activities or the right for friendly relations and travel to neighboring states, be it Poland, Lithuania or Russia.

We know from experience that the unitary state does not work in Ukraine. After every presidential election they change the Constitution: first they give more power to the president, then to the parliament, after that to the government. This merry-go-round cannot last for long. Federalization is a way to make all the regions feel comfortable, so that every region will know that its rights are being respected. And at the national level, they will have certain things in common, like defense, foreign policy, judiciary. We would be willing to do that – I mean guarantees that external players would offer to Ukraine after it implements these reforms.”

For Russia, the only acceptable solution for the Ukraine is federalism and with foreign policy unattached to either the West or Russia – a Finlandization of the Ukraine. The United States is slowly and reluctantly moving to accept Russia’s Ukraine position. In the meantime, the United States and the EU “own” the Ukraine that they shattered, and Russia is prepared to out-wait the West. Pepe Escobar stated all of this succinctly in his March 20, 2014 post in the Asia Times entitled How Crimea plays in Beijing: “Meanwhile, the Western dogs bark, and the Sino- Russian caravan passes.”

 

The US’s Ukraine Fiasco: End Of Empire?

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The US’s Ukraine Fiasco: End Of Empire?

S.J. Kowalski, March 11, 2014

The current Ukraine crisis can be best understood, in my opinion, by understanding the geo-strategy of the United States. In my opinion, the script can be found in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. We must remember that Brzezinski is the foreign policy eminence grise for the Obama administration.

The developing New Cold (Hot?) War between the United States and Russia over the US-engineered Ukraine regime change can best be understood if one understands that Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives provides the fabric and context for the America’s Eurasian geopolitical strategy. The following quotes from the Introduction clearly demonstrates what Zbigniew wishes to accomplish:

  • “Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power,”
  • “The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power [the United States] has emerged not only as the key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world’s paramount power.”
  • “Eurasia [after the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union – Zbigniew’s words], however, retains its geopolitical importance. Not only is its western periphery – Europe – still the location of much of the world’s political and economic power, but also its eastern region – Asia – has lately become a vital center of economic growth and rising political influence. Hence the issue of how a globally engaged America copes with the complex Eurasian power relationships – and particularly whether it prevents the emergence of a dominant and antagonistic Eurasian power – remains central to America’s capacity to exercise global primacy.”
  • “Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played, and that struggle involves geostrategy – the strategic management of geopolitical interests.” “A half century later, the issue has been redefined: will America’s primacy in Eurasia endure, and to what ends might it be applies?”
  • “The ultimate objective of America’s policy should be benign and visionary: to shape a truly cooperative global community, in keeping with the fundamental interests in humankind. But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging
  • America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.

Brzezinski’s geo-strategy has the following key points:

  • The over-arching objective of his strategy is the control of the world by the United States. [Tausendjähriges Reich]
  • Brzezinski is a follower of Harold Mackinder who in 1904 in his The Geographical Pivot of History propounded: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the world.
  • “The key players are located on the chessboard’s west [Western, Central, and Eastern Europe], east [China. Japan, South Korea], center [Russia], and south [India, Iran, and Turkey].” [Does the list have any surprises?]

A reasonable question to ask: Why does the US need such a geo-political strategy? Here are some additional quotes from The Grand Chessboard:

  • “Eurasia is also the location of most of the world’s politically assertive and dynamic states. After the United States, the next six largest economies and the next six biggest spenders on military weaponry are located in Eurasia.”
  • “Cumulatively, Eurasia’s power vastly overshadows America’s. Fortunately for America, Eurasia is too big to be politically one.” [This was true in 1997, but is not true in 2014.]
  • “Compounding the dilemmas facing the American leadership are the changes in character of the global situation itself: the direct use of power now tends to be more constrained than was the case in the past. Nuclear weapons have dramatically reduced the utility of war as a tool of policy or even as a threat. The growing economic interdependence among nations is making the political exploitation of economic blackmail less compelling. Thus maneuver, diplomacy, coalition building, co-optation, and the very deliberate deployment of one’s political assets have become the key ingredients of the successful exercise of geostrategic power on the Eurasian chessboard.
  • “A geostrategic issue of crucial importance is posed by China’s emergence as a major power.”
  • “Potentially, the most dangerous scenario [working against US hegemony] would be a grand coalition of China, Russia and perhaps Iran, an “antihegemonic” coalition united not by ideology but complementary grievances.” [While in 1997, an alliance of Russia, China, and Iran was not even a glitter in one’s eye, today, there is some such alliance of the three probably through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).”
  • “However, a coalition allying Russia with both China and Iran can develop only if the United States is shortsigthed enough to antagonize China and Iran simultaneously.” [Guess what Mr. Brzezinski. The collective group of succesive American president’s have smilingly did just that.]
  • “But the long-range task remains: how to encourage Russia’s democratic transformation and economic recovery while avoiding the reemergence of a Eurasian empire that could obstruct the American geostrategic goal of shaping alarger Euro-Atlantic system to which Russia can then be stably and safely related.” [Russia was an American “poodle” during the Yeltsin years, and, somewhat, during the Medvedev presidency. Under Putin, and especcially after his re-election to the presidency, Brzezinki’s fanciful fantasy has been dashed. Currently, we can see Brzezinski’s hysterical responses relative to the Ukraine fiasco in various news media.]
  • “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia.”

Emmanuel Todd’s AFTER THE EMPIRE: The Breakdown of the American Order is a must read for a superb analysis of all of America’s strategy of hegemony and why it will fail. Regarding Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard, Mr. Todd comments as follows:

“Brzezinski’s plan is clear and concise even if he suggests that wiping out Russia is for its own good. He proposes bringing Ukraine into the occidental fold and using Uzbekistan to pry Central Asia out of Russia’s control. He does not say that encircling Russia need necessarily lead to a breakup of the heart of the country. His high strategy does not forego a minimum of diplomatic caution. But there are things even more unspeakable. Brzezinski does not broach the subject of America’s economic inefficiency and the necessity for the United States to insure control over the world’s wealth through political and military means. However, his geopolitical experience does lead him to formulate this vital matter indirectly, first by underlining the fact that the bulk of the world’s population is in Eurasia, and second by pointing out that the United States is a long way from Eurasia. Read: Eurasia supplies the influx of goods and capital that are indispensable for maintaining the standard of living of all Americans, from the overclass to the plebeians.”

Mr. Brzezinski provided the United States with a strategy that would, if successful, insure the country’s long-term economic viability. But, only a fool would not recognize that, at best, his strategy was a desperate gamble with questionable odds. Mr. Brzezinski’s intricate strategy has been followed since the break-up of the Soviet Union. What Mr. Brzezinski has not articulated was the need for a competent leader who would execute this complex strategy from the time of Soviet Union break-up until the US has complete hegemony over Eurasia. In my opinion, the only world leader who could accomplish the above was the 19th century Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck was an exceptionally outstanding leader and a very astute practitioner of realpolitik. I have a feeling that Henry Kissinger would agree with me. Alas, the US does not have an Otto von Bismarck.

The above summary must be recognized as an abbreviated look at Brzezinski’s geo- strategy. A reading of his well-written The Grand Chessboard will be both illuminating and educational.

The recent coup of the Ukrainian government by the US and its shady accomplices looks to me as being incompetently developed, and, certainly, must have assumed that Russia would sit by as an American “poodle”. Obviously, the US was mistaken. It crossed Putin’s “red-line”, and now Russia is strongly ensconced in the Crimea. Vladimir Putin

is an outstanding leader, arguably, the best in the contemporary world. If the US masterminds had a fraction of his leadership ability, they would have easily recognized that Putin would not gratuitously give up the Crimea to the United States. Now, the United States is backed into a corner. If the US is not successful with its Ukrainian gambit, the world will see it as a decaying superpower. The US has no means, even conventional war, which will give it success in the Ukrainian fiasco. Will it, as a “cornered-rat”, do something as irrational as start a nuclear war? In my opinion, this risk is not zero.

Rise and Fall of the American Empire: Quigley’s The Evolution of Civilization Applied by S. Joseph Kowalski

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This essay applies Carroll Quigley’s The Evolution of Civilization to Western Civilization and particularly to that of the United States.  This essay argues that: Western Civilization is still mired in the Age of Conflict; the United States became Western Civilization’s Universal Empire at the conclusion of World War II; Western civilization was not fortunate to have a fourth period of Expansion; and, the United States has a high probability of entering its age of Decay.  To read the essay, please CLICK the following link:

The Rise and Fall of the American Empire