PAUL ANTONOPOULOS: AMERICAN DECLINE

Despite everything said by Donald Trump and his “hawks” John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and the current acting Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, on the ever-rising US global power, recent events are showing the emergence of limitations to the unilateral power of Washington.

This is demonstrated by their actions in Syria, North Korea, Iran or Venezuela. The US can no longer impose its will effectively on their enemies, opponents, permanent and temporary allies, and those who show their neutrality even when the US tries to ‘twist their arms.’

The head of the Russian Accounting Chamber, Alexei Kudrin, predicted that the United States is in a process of weakening, but due to the economic and financial war that broke out in the world, Washington would continue to dominate the planet for the next 40 years, ie until 2060. For his part, the Nobel Prize winner (for economics), the American Paul Krugman, also agrees with Kudrin about the decline of the US but he does not dare to make a forecast.

According to studies by Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt, as long as the dollar remains the main reserve global currency, as long as the country does not lose its capacity as a valuable market and the US maintains its ability to exclude other states from the infrastructure of global finance, the US will remain very powerful, and its assistance will be sought by other states and their declared enemies. For Walt, no country can ignore it.

However, Professor Walt also warns that we must not ignore that the US is already feeling certain limits to its global power that became even more accentuated with Trump, Bolton and Pompeo who until now have not realized that the world is losing its one-sidedness. The duo surrounding Trump took away from the president the ‘initial instincts’ he had when he assumed the presidency and pushed back his foreign policy to the era of George W. Bush based on the premise of Karl Rove (senior adviser to President Bush). He said: “ We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” 

The results of Washington’s ‘performance’ are well known in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen, countries that were destroyed, plundered with hundreds of thousands of children, women and men killed without mercy. Donald Trump is more cautious in launching his country to a new war adventure knowing in advance its imminent failure as it happened with all the recent American wars – despite the latest aggressive rhetoric towards Venezuela and Iran.

In addition, no matter how bellicose and warlike their advisors in the CIA, NSA and Pentagon are, any new war that the White House aspires to, it would not have popular support since the citizens of their country are sensing a possible economic recession and are not willing to empty their pockets further. It is the globalized media that are propitiating a war environment against Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and now Venezuela, knowing in advance that their country is not in a position to launch a new war. All the intimidation and propaganda are designed for the exclusive consumption in the USA and their European, Asian and Latin American vassals.

The foreign policy of the US resembles that of the peacock that boasts of its greatness, extending its feathers as a threat, without noticing that its range of colors no longer has an effect, as it once did on countries like Russia and China that Washington is ironically forcing them to push closer to each other every day, even though these two countries are not natural or historical allies.

The policy of intimidation on which the Trump doctrine is based failed in Syria, whose winner turned out to be Russia in the Great Power battle. The demand of Washington to the total disarmament and denuclearization of North Korea brought Kim Jong-Un closer to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and also produced the resumption of the tests of Pyongyang’s newest missiles. The interesting thing was that Trump said that despite these tests, the US wants to continue talks with North Korea. The sanctions against Iran are failing since Tehran will resume its nuclear program eventually. The United States is also losing its virtual battle unleashed by the globalized media: and the economic and financial battle against Venezuela and Russia.

The threats of an imminent military intervention against Venezuela, launched by Trump, Bolton, Pompeo, the President’s chief advisor to Venezuela Eliott Abrams and Shanahan, were recently denied by the acting assistant for international security matters of the Secretary of Defense, Catherine Wilbarger.

Called by the Armed Forces Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives of Congress, Wilbarger clarified on May 1 that the Pentagon did not receive any document or orders from the White House, not only about the beginning of military actions against Venezuela, but also the instructions for its preparation. At the same time, during the recent phone conversation between Trump and Vladimir Putin, the current tenant of the White House did not even mention, when talking about the crisis in the Bolivarian country, a possibility of US military intervention in Venezuela or the forced exit of Nicolás Maduro from his country.

All these ‘fake news’ are part of the virtual media game of bullying designed by Washington and disseminated day by day by the globalized media. The United States does not currently have some 200,000 military personnel to intervene in Venezuela, nor does it have money for this war adventure. The so-called Venezuelan peaceful opposition led by Juan Guaidó who left his so-called pacifism and returned to his violent roots, thus losing the incipient support of a sector of the population. The majority of Venezuelans prefer to stay with Maduro despite the economic difficulties, rather than being with a puppet of Washington who is calling for US military intervention without thinking about its bloody consequences.

At the same time, the US lies about the terror that supposed Cuban troops cause in Caracas, despite them not being in the country. Washington’s accusations against Russia calling the country a “destabilizing force” were not even taken into account by Moscow. Only a few days ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that any attempt of the US war against Venezuela will receive a Russian response with “serious consequences”. Washington knows all this because it turns out that the US is 20 years behind Russia in the development of modern weapons.

According to several Pentagon studies, it would take precisely 20 years for the USA to equal Russia in the creation of hypersonic rockets, intercontinental missiles, new offensive weapons and military technologies such as the SARMAT, Poseidon, Burevestnik, Avangard, Kinzhal or Tsirkon. Russia has renewed 70% of its armaments and special military technologies in the last 10 years.

The US Program, Armament Systems of the Future, initiated in 2003, failed in 2009 and was cancelled by the Pentagon. The Comanche superhelicon project failed, losing $8 billion; the same thing happened with an antitank system with the loss of more money; and, followed by the armored car M2, M3 Bradley ($1 billion). Precisely this superiority of Russian armament is forcing Donald Trump to renegotiate the Treaty of Intercontinental Offensive Weapons with Russia.

The US is also losing its struggle with China to maintain world domination and control natural resources. The minerals of Afghanistan are exploited by China despite the presence of more than 17,000 US troops and more than 15,000 contractors. Chinese investment in Latin America, Central America and the Caribbean exceeds that of the United States, the same is happening in Africa. Xi Jinping together with Putin are in the process of changing world structures around the world in order to diminish Washington’s global control.

While China was a producer of low-tech items, it was accepted by the US, but when China began to produce advanced technologies and dominate global trade, Washington decided to stop this process and bring China back to the past, which in logical terms would be impossible. The judicial process against the powerful Chinese corporation, Huawei, specializing in 5G mobile technology and the arrest of one of its executives are swipes of the US’ own drowning.

This would have to destabilize the financial system of Hong Kong and especially the stock exchange Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect through which the Chinese money is moving. The ‘Occupy Hong Kong’ movement that failed in 2014 was the creation of American intelligence services in order to destabilize China through Hong Kong. The Government of China reduced in response its US Treasury bonds from $1.27 to $1.06 billion. Nor do the Americans take into account the Road and Belt Initiative, which is being promoted by the Xi government and which represents an attractiveness for investors who look to the future.

At the same time, this initiative is neutralizing the financial war unleashed by the US against China. The increased activity of US warships in the Taiwan Strait is also not intimidating to Beijing as it is well aware that in the case of a conflict, the US will not defend Taiwan because of the lack of consensus in public opinion in the US. The best thing for Trump and his falcons to do is to really dedicate themselves to the economy of their country.

Tax revenues are falling apart while government spending is growing. The health system is bankrupt, according to the American Cancer Society. Nearly 137 million Americans had to resort to loans that totalled $88 billion in total to pay for their medical expenses in 2018. The student debt reaches $1.5 billion, 42% of whom continue paying people after their retirement. The credit card debt exceeds $800,000 million and the capital of the financial world, New York, houses 14% of 582,000 homeless Americans.

So, it’s time for Trump to stop his bullying and start rebuilding his own country without wasting time instead of instructing others what they should and should not do if he really wants his America to be “Great Again.”