In the face of total global economic collapse, a prospect of a massive international war is increasing. Historically, periods of imperial decline and economic crisis are marked by increased international violence and war. The decline of the great European empires was marked by WW I and WW II, with the Great Depression taking place in the intermediary period.
The world is witnessing the decline of the American empire, a product born out of WW II. As the post-war imperial power, America ran the international monetary system and reigned as champion and arbitrator of the global political economy.
To manage the global political economy, the United States has created the single largest and most powerful military force in world history. Constant control over the global economy requires constant military presence and action.
Now that both the American empire and global political economy are in decline and collapse, the prospect of a violent end to the American imperial age is drastically increasing.
US foreign policy had to re-imagine its role in the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Cold War served as a means of justifying American imperialist expansion across the globe with the aim of “containing” the Soviet threat.
In 1992, Dick Cheney had Paul Wolfowitz write up a defense document to guide American foreign policy, commonly referred to as the “New World Order.”
The Defense Planning Guidance revealed that, the Defense Department affirms that America’s political and military mission will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union. The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be maintained by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American dominance.
The neo-conservative from the George Bush administration formed a think tank called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). They published a report called, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century. They state that, “the US must retain sufficient forces able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars.” Further, there is “need to retain sufficient combat forces to fight and win, multiple, nearly simultaneous major theatre wars,” and that “the Pentagon needs to begin to calculate the force necessary to protect, independently, US interests in Europe, East Asia and the Gulf at all times.”
Plans for war were already under development by far right Think Tanks organizations in which cold-war warriors, evangelical churches, weapons corporations and oil companies forged shocking plans for a new world order. The United States would need to use all means - diplomatic, economic and military, even wars of aggression - to have long term control of the resources of the planet and the ability to keep any possible rival weak.
In his book, The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski outlined a strategy for America in the world. He wrote, “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia. For half a millennium, world affairs were dominated by Eurasian powers and peoples who fought with one another for regional domination and reached out for global power.” Further, “how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail African subordination.”
He outlined a strategy for American empire, stating that, “it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” He explained that, “Two basic steps are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them: [and] second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above.”
Brzezinski wrote, “To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.”
“Moreover, the Central Asian Republics (Eurasian Balkans) are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.” He further wrote that, “It follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”
Brzezinski warned that, “The US may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global power,” and he, “puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America's primacy.” Thus, “The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role.”
A document released by the Pentagon called Joint Vision 2020, a project to achieve what they termed, “Full Spectrum Dominance,” for the Department of Defense in the future. Full-spectrum dominance means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations. It addresses full-spectrum dominance across the range of conflicts from nuclear war to major theater wars to smaller-scale conflicts. It also addresses fluid situations like peacekeeping and noncombat humanitarian relief. Further, the development of a global information grid will provide the environment for decision superiority.
The “Bush doctrine,” which called for “a unilateral and exclusive right to preemptive attack, any time, anywhere, unfettered by any international agreements, to ensure that ‘US forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hope of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States’.”
The hidden stakes in the war against terrorism is the oil and gas reserves in Saudi Arabia, Libya, Bahrain, the Gulf Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan and Algeria, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Georgia and eastern Turkey. This region accounts for more than 65% of the world's oil and natural gas production. The war against terrorism is a war on behalf of America's Chevron, ExxonMobil and Arco; France's TotalFinaElf; British Petroleum; Royal Dutch Shell and other multinational giants, which have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the region.
The war on Iraq and Afghanistan, were strategically designed to eliminate, threaten or contain regional powers, as well as to directly install several dozen military bases in the region, firmly establishing an imperial presence. The purpose of this is largely aimed at other major regional players and specifically, encircling Russia and China and threatening their access to the regions oil and gas reserves. Iran is now surrounded, with Iraq on one side and Afghanistan on the other.
“Boundless domination of a global economy, and of the multiple states that administer it, requires military action without end, in purpose or time.” Further, “Imperial dominance in a global capitalist economy requires a delicate and contradictory balance between suppressing competition and maintaining conditions in competing economies that generate markets and profit. This is one of the most fundamental contradictions of the new world order” ~ Ellen Wood, a political economist.
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