I had been asked to give a keynote speech at a conference at Columbia University’s Journalism School. It was January 2002. Two planes had been flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center months earlier and you could still feel how wounded the city felt. You could read it in the faces of New Yorkers you spoke to.
But it was the words of one of his classmates that come back to me now. He had arrived in New York just a few days before 9/11 from his native Pakistan to study at Columbia. He likened the United States to Imperial Rome.
"If you are lucky enough to live within the walls of the Imperial Citadel, which is to say here in the US, you experience American power as something benign. It protects you and your property. It bestows freedom by upholding the rule of law. It is accountable to the people through democratic institutions.
“But if, like me, you live on the Barbarian fringes of Empire, you experience American power as something quite different. It can do anything to you, with impunity… And you can’t stop it or hold it to account.”
So you prefer the alternative multipolar order in which the USA, China, Russia and (maybe) India project their will in their regional influence zones by strength. That is certainly a point of view.
Certainly, because not every country will have bloodthirsty citizens and imperialistic aspirations, right? Not every country is Japan or France… and just because a country can defend itself a bit better doesn’t mean they’ll go full Nam or Falujah, right? People can cooperate, and for more than just military excursions. All these countries just have enough firepower to hold the West at bay, we’ll see if this develops into many mini Americas or not. I believe it won’t, and I believe that America and parts of the West will become so miserable we’ll see a white man exodus in the next 30 years, which will make the rest of the world see the West differently and normalize relationships in about 100 years, maybe? Maybe I’m being too optimistic.
Not every country could be Japan or France because there was a stronger country enforcing current political borders.
In no way does this justify capturing Maduro, but Maduro was talking about invading Guyana last year. We’re already seeing various Middle Eastern countries build spheres of influence in the various civil wars in Africa, hoping to fill the void of a shrinking west.
At best, the world will have a peace similar to the one in Europe post-Napoleon where every major power gets their empire to do with as they please.
Maduro was just replaced like Bashar al-Assad was, because the American empire is tightening things in its region, and it was coordinated and accepted by other groups. But we shall see, right? I think war will continue to take place in Europe and America, well, America will get the Palestinian/global South experience. But the rest of the world at large, especially the further you are from the grasp of America, might just make deals and cooperation agreements. Not every country has an MIC that buys politicians and pushes them to do war, as well.
And you just talked past the crux of my argument where a shrinking American presence can lead to war without addressing it.
Maduro said that he would invade another country. He probably would have done it if it wasn’t for a rapid American diplomatic response, the one before his kidnapping.
Borders will be in flux and those borders in flux will lead to war and death.
We’ll see how much, we’ll see to what extent one nation can subjugate another. Of course, the world will be in flux, of course people will die, but at least it won’t be a collective effort by a select group of people and nations to enslave the whole world but regional differences that might be resolved with the least amount of bloodshed (which can’t be done when war is a racket and you use it for profit, ammo has to be spent!). There’s a revolution going on outside of the West, and good things will come, but of course we have to go through a bit of chaos. What’s the alternative? Allowing the American empire and their vassals to run amok as they have, dropping bombs, droning and raping indiscriminately ?
Trump has made the American Empire caustic to the international order in part because he is leading the charge to discard the international order for something else.
I feel like the issue at hand is that revolutionaries want to promise a better tomorrow without building a non-American world order without acknowledging that the various wars between the world wars are only going to amplify and that many of the intermediate powers don’t share the same political end goals.
? Why would they amplify? Do you know how many wars the American empire started or triggered through regional destabilisation efforts since WW2? From Korea to Ukraine, man, come on. That’s not a reasonable argument to make IMO. We shall see, but I believe other communities won’t go to war the way the West has so easily. And it’s not a “revolutionary promise”, it’s just the reality of the world today, acknowledged even by the White House: we live in a world post American hegemony. This is why Venezuela took place, and Greenland is threatened.
Do you know the deaths that happened post World War I? Do you know the deaths that happened in World War I on the scale compared to what was before?
You seem focused a lot on “America bad” and I can’t argue that an American led international order was bloodless, but the lack of a power is going to lead to increased conflict. After all, if it wasn’t for the USA, why wouldn’t Venezuela invade Guyana?
It’s an interesting twist to American/Western exceptionalism to think either are especially evil and imperialistic, instead of them just having been the strong ones/those in position to do those things. It’s not like there have ever been empires outside of US/West…
I am not sure if you are being ironic. Are you claiming Russia and China don’t have imperialistic aspirations?
China almost none (reintegrating the colonized territories is not imperialism, but anti imperialism), and Russia, maybe but they’re defanged, and certainly not to the extent of the West? That has never been part of their civilization’s psyche. I mean, FFS, the only real ideological development worth anything that came from this side of the world comes from the Russians side of Europe in the form of Marxism/Leninism. I trust them more with right and wrong and power than I do France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands (Dutch East India Company), Belgium (King Leopold)… I don’t think any group of people have been as bloodthirsty, violent and amoral as these ones. You might disagree and I understand why, but any non propagandised mind outside of the Western sphere of influence knows what I’m talking about. Also, China is literally making deals and not dropping bombs around the world which, regardless of spin, is a much better alternative, lol, and the big imperialist beast in their region is and has historically been Japan, come on.
“it’s never been in their psyche” why is Russia as large as it is today?
Why is the rest of the world not speaking Russian besides some countries in Europe in their vicinity ? 🤔
Why does Russia extend to the Far East? Hmmmmm? Why are there less Circassians in the Circassian Republic than in Turkey? Hmmmm…
Maybe (and this might seem crazy) other countries, those with easy access to the seas and warm water ports, colonized Africa and the Americas, while Muscovy, with prime access to the Lands beyond the Ural and a pathway into the Caucasus, colonized those areas.
@yappymonotheist I find your take immoral, racist with a tad of fascistic nationalistic influences, and definitely disinformed. I really hope it’s just ragebait.
I don’t even know what to say, this is a mess of words, lol. If you’re “baited”, it’s probably your cognitive dissonance.
Marx was German.
But where did this take place? What society put it forward? And what society put Nazism forward? 🤔
Why do you think Russia “maybe” had “imperialistic aspirations?” There was a dump recently of Putin’s conversations with Bush-Cheney that answered the question, but, as Parenti put it, manufacturing reality happened.
Simplify and detail it for me Maeve, please, what exactly are you referring too? I’m sorry but I just came home from a long shift. 🥲
USA has repeatedly made and broken promises to Russia, like everyone else they (we) dealt with. We promised Russia no NATO creep into their back yard (“not one inch!”) and we constantly push NATO closer. We’re fighting a proxy war, including a regime change, with Ukraine. Then sanction Russia for anything that might help them help their people.
Oh, yeah, definitely. Sorry about the downvotes, they should’ve been on me! But I assume you don’t really care and understand this is just the holler of intellectually hit dogs. They’ll come around, sooner or later. 😅
Not worried about any of it. It’s concerning my compatriots get but a glimpse of what we’ve dealt to the global South, and still believe every word the empire tells them to believe.
Well put. Judge nations by their actions.