Harry Targ
From a Washington Post editorial, May 21, 2016:
HARDLY A day goes by without evidence that the liberal international order of the past seven decades is being eroded. China and Russia are attempting to fashion a world in their own illiberal image…This poses an enormous trial for the next U.S. president. We say trial because no matter who takes the Oval Office, it will demand courage and difficult decisions to save the liberal international order. As a new report from the Center for a New American Security points out, this order is worth saving, and it is worth reminding ourselves why: It generated unprecedented global prosperity, lifting billions of people out of poverty; democratic government, once rare, spread to more than 100 nations; and for seven decades there has been no cataclysmic war among the great powers. No wonder U.S. engagement with the world enjoyed a bipartisan consensus.
The Washington Post
editorial quoted above clearly articulates the dominant view envisioned
by US foreign policy elites for the years ahead. It in effect
constitutes a synthesis of the "neocon" and the "liberal
interventionist" wings of the ruling class. In my judgment, with all our
attention on primaries, who goes to which bathrooms, and other
mystifications, a New Cold War is being planned. Only this time it will
have even greater consequences for global violence
and devastation of the environment than the first one.
The Post vision of a New
World Order built upon a reconstituted United States military and
economic hegemony has been a central feature of policymaking at least
since the end of World War II even though time after
time it has suffered setbacks: from defeat in Vietnam, to radical
decolonization across the Global South, and to the rise of competing
poles of power in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and even Europe.
And despite recent setbacks, grassroots mass mobilizations
against neoliberal globalization and austerity policies have risen
everywhere, even in the United States. The Washington Post speaks to efforts to reassemble the same constellation of political forces, military resources, and concentrated wealth, that,
if anything, is greater than at any time since the establishment of the US “permanent war economy” after the last World War.
Recent US diplomacy
illustrates the application of the vision. President Obama remains
committed to trade agreements that will open the doors in every country
to penetration by the 200 corporations and banks that dominate
the global economy. He continues to expand military expenditures and to
authorize the development of new generations of nuclear weapons (at the
same time as he visits the site of the dropping of the first atomic bomb
at Hiroshima). He engages aggressively in
words, deeds, and provocative military moves against Russia and China.
Also, he recently visited
Cuba, proclaiming the willingness of the United States to help that
country shift its economic model to “free market” capitalism and
“democracy.” He then traveled to Argentina to give legitimacy
to President Macri, recently elected advocate of that country’s return
to the neoliberal agenda. Meanwhile the United States encourages those
who promote instability in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Honduras and
offers continuing support to the long-term
violent politics of Colombia.
During the President’s visit
to Vietnam, he declared an end to the longstanding US arms embargo
against that country and warmly supports that country’s incorporation
into the Trans Pacific Partnership. He hopes to
construct a military coalition against China, even while criticizing
Vietnam’s record on human rights. After Vietnam Obama is scheduled to
travel to Hiroshima at a time when new militarist currents have become
more popular in Japan and while US troops continue
to engage in violent behavior against citizens of Okinawa, where the US
has a military base. In addition, US naval vessels patrol the South
China Sea.
These trips have been
paralleled by the President’s historic trip to the Persian Gulf earlier
this year, shoring up the ties with Saudi Arabia which have been a
centerpiece of Middle East/Persian Gulf policy since
President Roosevelt negotiated a permanent partnership with that country
in the spring of 1945. President Obama has resumed a slow but steady
escalation of “boots on the ground” in Iraq, continued support for
rebels fighting ISIS and at the same time the government
of Syria. And to carry out the mission of reconstituting US hegemony
drone strikes and bombing missions target enemies in multiple countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
The increasing contradictions
of finance and industrial capital grow on a worldwide basis and masses
of people in many countries are standing up against the imposition of
austerity policies. Also it is becoming clearer
to all classes that the natural environment is in peril. But the Washington Post calls
for a return to the US global policy that emerged after World War II
and which benefited banks, multinational corporations, and the
military-industrial complex as
millions of people died in war. Only this time, the US imperial model is
less likely to succeed, irrespective of the results of the November,
2016 election.
