Since the end of World War II, the US government has deluded itself, but like all delusions, the government’s has run into reality. It has done so before, but this may mark a demarcation. It would be too much to expect the delusion to give way to wisdom, but the delusion cannot persist, as even a few of the deluded are beginning to realize.
Washington’s delusion has been that the anomalous position of supreme, unchallengeable power in which it found itself at the end of the war—leader of the winning alliance, sole possessor of the atomic bomb, keeper of the reserve currency, with the only intact industrial infrastructure—would be permanent. Reality soon intruded. The USSR penetrated the US nuclear weapons program and detonated its first bomb in 1949. The Korean war was a stalemate, not a win. Vietnam was a defeat. The US abandoned the responsibility it had undertaken to maintain the world’s reserve currency, to redeem dollars for gold, when President Nixon closed the gold window in 1971. Islamists overthrew the US puppet Shah of Iran and installed a theocracy hostile to the US. This sparked an upsurge of Islamic militancy in the Middle East that bedevils the US to this day.
US hegemonic triumphalism rallied after the dissolution of the USSR, but it proved to be a dead cat bounce. Welfare state transfer payments, overall spending, and the national debt continued to grow as the we-can-have-it-all fantasies of the populace and its politicians persisted. There was no scaling back of either domestic or global commitments, even as the economy began to demonstrate subtle signs of deterioration. That deterioration was masked by central bank machinations that promoted rising equity, bond, and housing markets, bestowing paper wealth that served as an imperfect and skewed replacement for shrinking opportunities in an increasingly debt-saturated and government-controlled economy.
The tech wreck at the turn of the century should have served as a warning, but 9/11 diverted the nation’s attention towards the Middle East. A series of inconclusive and in some cases disastrous forays there, coupled with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, should have been a bracing bucket of cold water and hard slap in the face for both elites and the people: the days of American omnipotence were over. The people came to their senses; their power-drunk elites have not. In 2013, the elites teed up a “red line” Syrian military campaign that the people resoundingly rejected. They had had enough of Middle East interventions, sold as imposing US “order,” which had only made that region more chaotic and dangerous.
The power drunks are trying other fronts in the Middle East—the Islamic State and Iran. If the public doesn’t bite, and the Republican party is placing a big, and probably losing, bet that it will, perhaps Ukraine will do. Here, however, our friends in Europe are like a drunk’s friends in a bar at closing time. While the US has done its best to rattle Russia’s cage and bring Ukraine into the US constellation of power, Europe has shaken its head at the barkeeper: no more drinks and please call him a cab. Germany and France have had enough war the last 100 years. They don’t fancy one with nuclear-armed Russia, on it’s doorstep no less. They sent their power-drunk friend home and they negotiated a cease-fire with Ukraine and Russia. The US pooh-poohed the agreement—how could a party be any good if the life of the party wasn’t there? However, the agreement has, for the most part, been observed. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has acknowledged that the eastern rebels have complied with its terms and moved their armaments.
Like many friends and families of drunks, the Europeans have realized that the US is not just an abusive embarrassment (Victoria Nuland, an assistant secretary of state, was recorded saying “fuck the EU” on a phone call to US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt), but a danger to itself and its friends. Over the past two weeks, which may come to be recognized as a historically important watershed, Germany, France, and other important US friends have, in effect, staged an intervention.
China has started a new development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and invited everyone to join. If it runs true to development bank form, it will soon be riddled with back-room politics, cronyism, and corruption. However, that’s besides the point. This bank will be run by the Chinese, in conjunction with Russia and other emerging market nations. Recognizing the threat to its international financial dominance, the US has told its friends not to join, couching it as a matter of concern about the governance and lending procedures of the new bank (the US knows all about cronyism and corruption).
The US’s friends in Europe and Asia have sat the US down on a chair in the center of the room and said: “You’ve got a power problem. You’ve been pushing everyone around for years and it has impaired your judgment, led to all sorts of irrational behavior, and threatens to destroy your soul. You pose a danger not just to yourself, but to us as well. We’re here to help, but you have to recognize your problem, seek treatment, and change your ways. Until you do, we have to take the steps necessary to protect ourselves from you.” Virtually all of them have ignored the US diktat and indicated they will join the AIIB. The few that have not are leaning in that direction.
Interventions don’t always work. The drunk often continues in self-destructive denial until he ends up in a gutter, emergency room, or morgue. Reports this morning suggest that the US, bowing to reality, will try to get the AIIB to work with the existing development banks it dominates. It amounts to a plea for one last drink, which never turns out to be the last drink. The US elite are a deluded, corrupt, self-important lot, addicted to power. The chances that they will sober up after this collective rebuke are minimal. However, by flocking to the AIIB, the rebukers are both recognizing the rising power of a Chinese- and Russian-led Eurasian axis, and edging away from the hubristic and dangerous deterioration of a US that fails to realize that ever less attention is being paid to its inebriated boasts, blandishments, and threats. Someday, there might not even be anyone left to tell the barkeeper to quit pouring and call a cab.
http://straightlinelogic.com/2015/03/23/the-partys-over-by-robert-gore/
