A Conservative Warning On The Changing World Order

I missed this article at American Conservative, almost a sort of manifesto, amid all the hubbub late last week—the Iran - Saudi reconciliation, China - Russia, SVB and so forth. Today promises to be another newsworthy day so I wanted to get some excerpts out before it escapes me again. It’s not that the author is saying things we didn’t know before or haven’t discussed, nor do I know how influential American Conservative may actually be. Still, it seems to me to be another turning point among grassroot conservatives and their intellectual class that sooner or later may filter up to the ruling class. After all, it appears that American Conservative isn’t afraid of losing its readers for publishing articles like this, for contradicting American “Exceptionalism”—as would have been the case not too long ago. That’s why I think this is important. The polls are moving, too. Slowly but surely. I think this article reflects that.

Just a few excerpts from what is, in some ways, an American conservative counterpart to the recent Chinese indictment of US abuses of hegemony.

Death of a Myth

Americans need to wake up to the realities of a post-unipolar world before it’s too late.

We are experiencing the death throes of the United States’ unipolar hegemony over large parts of world. Until citizens begin to realize the magnitude of their government’s policy deceptions, it will become increasingly difficult to understand the United States’ changing global position and adjust to the effects of the growing negative perception of our country held by many people around the world.

Since World War II, and particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was the dominant and unrivaled world power. Instead of being a peacekeeper and honest “world's policeman,” the U.S. has increasingly been a destabilizing bully. Many leaders worldwide have been reluctant to speak up about the increasingly destructive nature of U.S. foreign policy for fear of being punished. But as U.S. stature and power declines, large parts of the world have been seeking arrangements to protect themselves from U.S. predation.

You can see this happening everywhere. Iran and Saudi turning to Russia and China, Turkey also cultivating new ties, India … The list goes on.

Most Americans do not understand why such realignments are occurring, thanks to a constant stream of propaganda about America being the “most generous,” the “exceptional nation,” a “nation that sets aside its interests for the benefit of the world,” an “important source of good” around the globe as the “protector of the rules based order,” always shouldering the heavy responsibility to protect the international system and weak nations from bad actors, ad nauseam. ...

Most Americans cannot accept these observations because they contradict the narrative given them by the omnipresent state propaganda machine. While the ever growing list of American misdeeds abroad has for years been largely unchallenged at home, it has become increasingly obvious to many across the globe. Americans should take note. For example, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has just published an overview of what they see as U.S. misbehavior. ...

China’s own misdeeds are beside the point. In world geopolitics it’s usually: What have you done for us lately, and what have you been doing to us for decades.

... The U.S. has also repeatedly flouted international law by invading countries that do not bow to U.S. hegemony.

There are a number of U.S. agencies that covertly fund NGO election interference operations. ... Some estimate the U.S. has interfered in as many as fifty countries.

The days of pretending to ignore this destructive behavior are drawing to a close. ...

Most recently we’ve seen this in Hungary and Georgia. Most Americans may not pay attention to these shenanigans, but the rest of the world does notice and is increasingly taking protective action. This protective action is also enhanced by the perception around the world that the unipolar era and dominance of King Dollar is drawing to a close.

The fallout of the tragic and unnecessary Ukraine war has accelerated this movement to seek other cooperative associations. As America’s European allies are learning, there can be huge political and economic costs to being associated with the U.S. ...

...

… But as the U.S. appears less powerful, the rest of the world is beginning to take notice and are moving to seek other protective friendships.

...

Contrary to the many assertions that the Russians would collapse from the shock and awe of the “sanctions from Hell,” the ruble has not turned into rubble as Joe Biden predicted. The U.S. and its NATO clients are running out of ammunition and arms to send to Ukraine, which is being bled white at their behest. It appears that Russia will steadily grind down the Ukrainian military. All of this is reminiscent of World War I. The proto-neoconservatives sold that war as a quick engagement that would be over by Christmas 1914. Four years later, 20 million were dead and many more were wounded or displaced; subsequently most of the European Christian monarchies collapsed, Russia descended into communism's seventy-year nightmare, and the “War to End all Wars” to make the world “safe for democracy” set the stage for the even more horrific World War II.

A century later, we are sleepwalking into World War III. Americans should ignore the state-sponsored propaganda (eerily similar to that which led up to WWI), wake up, look at what their leaders have wrought, and do all they can to end support for this cruel war before we face a Great War–like conflagration or worse.

In fact, I don’t actually believe this is really all that reminiscent of the runup to either WW1 or WW2. Back then, all nations were more or less armed to the teeth and had large populations of young male cannon fodder to expend. As we’re seeing, NATO has fairly quickly—in the big scheme of things—proven to be ineffective, at least in deterring Russia from pursuing its existential interests relentlessly. My prediction is that within the year the US will need to find a way out. This will be prompted even more urgently by economic and financial pressure. Powell’s interest rate hikes, under the presumption that they will continue, will put unbearable pressure on the US globalists to pull out of the war. This will spell the end of NATO, but also the end of globalist hegemony.