US Declares ‘War’ October 20, 2023

Michael Brenner subjects the audaciously aggressive U.S. strategic posture to the kind of examination that he finds remarkably absent, even at the highest levels of government.

The Armed Forces Farewell and Hail for 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley and 21st Chairman General Charles Q. Brown, Sept. 29 at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia. (White House, Carlos Vazquez) By Michael Brenner U.S. foreign policy has set the country on a course destined to lead to a world of rivalry, strife and conflict into the foreseeable future. Washington has declared “war” on China, on Russia, on whomever partners with them. That “war” is comprehensive — diplomatic, financial, commercial, technological, cultural, ideological. It implicitly fuses a presumed great power rivalry for dominance with a clash of civilizations: the U.S.-led West against the civilizational states of China, Russia and potentially India. Direct military action is not explicitly included but armed clashes are not absolutely precluded. They can occur via proxies as in Ukraine. They can be sparked by Washington’s dedication to bolster Taiwan as an independent country. A series of formal defense reviews confirm statements by the most senior U.S. officials and military commanders that such a conflict is likely within the decade. Plans for warfighting are well advanced. This feckless approach implicitly casts the Chinese foe as a modern-day Imperial Japan despite the catastrophic risks intrinsic to a war between nuclear powers. The extremity of Washington’s overreaching, militarized strategy intended to solidify and extend its global dominance is evinced by the latest pronouncement of required war-fighting capabilities. Recommendations just promulgated by the congressional bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission include developing and fielding “homeland integrated air and missile defenses that can deter and defeat coercive attacks by Russia and China, and determine the capabilities needed to stay ahead of the North Korean threat.” They were endorsed by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley in his post-retirement interview where he proposed adding up to $1 trillion to the current defense budget in order to create the requisite capabilities.

Oct 5, 2023 • Article A Requiem for the Rules-Based Order: The Case for Value-Neutral Ethics in International Relations U.S. Global Engagement Initiative By Arta Moeini

The Unraveling of the Established Order Regardless of how it eventually concludes, the Russo-Ukrainian War represents a seismic event signaling profound changes in the global landscape. The unipolar era is at its end, major countries are more concerned with their cultural sovereignty and strategic autonomy than they have been in decades, and it seems inevitable that the once-dominant Western hegemony must gradually yield to a more diverse and multipolar system. The period following World War II witnessed the ascendancy of the United States and its allies as architects of a new international order premised on the institutionalization of Western values such as democracy and human rights. This Western-centric approach to global governance—known as the “rules-based order”—has encountered mounting challenges. China's rise, Russia's geopolitical subversiveness, and the growing assertiveness of emerging powers from the Global South have eroded Western dominance. The outcome is a more diverse world, characterized by multiple centers of power coexisting, challenging any single ideology or set of substantive values. We live in a period we should perhaps call the Great Transition. We are witnessing the emergence of a polycentric, regionalist, and interest-based order centered around middle powers and civilizational states: These states hold historic disagreements and rivalries but are nevertheless united in rejecting a U.S.-led system, which they consider the latest instantiation of a Western exceptionalism and colonial hubris that abhors genuine difference and opposing worldviews. With peer great power China putting its weight behind this informal non-aligned axis and the non-Western economic bloc BRICS expanding to six new members including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina in 2024, trepidations have risen among U.S. and European observers as to the future of the international order they created and underwrote since 1945. While a crux of these worries stems from questions of power and structural change—after all, no great power (certainly not one that spent more than two decades as the undisputed global superpower) looks kindly at being challenged by peer rivals—this transition also raises crucial questions about future international norms and the ethics that should underpin them. In the halls of power in Brussels, London, and Washington DC, one hears lots of talk about the threat to the “rules-based” order or the importance of a “values-based” foreign policy. According to these elites, to not protect the extant status quo and its normative framework is an inexcusable offense presaging the fall into tyranny.

West's Pro-Israel Position Accelerates Its Loss Of Power

Western media start to note how their politicians' unwavering support for Israel and Ukraine is diminishing their countries' global standing. At Naked Capitalism Yves Smith notes the devastating political effects of the Gaza bombing on Biden's foreign policies: Biden Gets Zelensky Treatment in Middle East as Israel Tries to Escalate The US, in a continued demonstration of the degree of enbubblement of what passes for its leadership, seems to believe it still has the force and soft power to be able to bully talk its way out of its geopolitical messes. Yet this week we have stunning examples of how critical players in the rest to the world no longer buy what the US is selling. The gap between the American establishment’s connection to reality and facts on the ground has opened up to a yawning chasm as the Arab world, as Jordan cancelled a Biden summit with its King Abduallah II plus PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in response to Israel’s shelling of Al-Ahli Arab hospital. Not only are they rejecting the attempt to shift blame for the attack to Hamas (we’ll soon address the “rogue shell” claim), but also the bigger pretense behind that, that the US is incapable of, as opposed to unwilling to, applying the choke chain to Israel. Even the Western media are not much on board with the Israeli and Biden Administration pretense that somehow Hamas dunnit, when Israel has been trying to herd Palestinians out of northern Gaza and specifically attempted to order the evacuation of the hospital. Oh, and this follows Israel ordering the UN to evacuate from Gaza in 24 hours and then shelling its warehouse there: ... Israel bombed, probably with a U.S. made Hellfire missile, the courtyard of the Baptist al-Ahli Arab hospital where thousands had sought refuge. A short video of the immediate aftermath shows several dozens if not hundreds of dead and wounded. Doctors later held a press conference while standing among some of the casualties.