Friday, February 17, 2023

Imperial Decline and the Threat of a New Cold War With China

 Revisiting a Book Review in the Context of Rising Tensions

Harry Targ

Alfred McCoy, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power, Haymarket Books, 2017.


Researchers affiliated with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists who regularly assess the danger of nuclear war declared that the probability of nuclear war has increased over the last year. Using their “doomsday clock” as a metaphor the dial was recently moved to 100 seconds to midnight; midnight signifying the onset of nuclear war. The scientists believe that the danger of nuclear destruction and devastating climate disaster is greater now than at any time since the early 1980s.

The context for this grim prediction is well-reflected in a 2017 book  by University of Wisconsin historian Alfred McCoy, In the Shadows of the American Century.  The author describes the twentieth century emergence of the US as the global hegemonic power based upon economic superiority and overwhelming military power. However, this economic and military dominance is being challenged today.

Perhaps the most critical challenge to the American empire, he suggests, is the rise of China, particularly as an economic successor to US control of the global political economy: Chinese domestic development, Chinese trade and investment with countries on every continent, and an Asian financial and trading system that challenges the historic US presence in the region. In economic terms the global system is changing from unipolarity to multipolarity.

In response to this decline McCoy suggests that the United States has embarked on a program to expand militarily programs around the globe and in outer space including preparing for cyber space war, occupying space, developing biometrics to identify potential enemies, increasing drone warfare capabilities, and the creation of a whole panoply of weapons that exceed the imagination of science fiction. In sum, therefore, the new militarism is designed to forestall and overcome declining empire.

This book is a must read for the peace movement because it indicates the dangerous world in which we live, the emergence of a New Cold War with China, and the increased probability of global destruction. It suggests that peace activists must continue to oppose militarism and develop a public discourse that celebrates the emergence of a multi-polar world, a world in which more countries can participate in global policy-making. The alternative could be, as the atomic scientists warn, a nuclear apocalypse.

As to an older narrative of challenges to United States hegemony during Cold War I see:


http://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2018/05/strategy-of-empire-in-decline-cold-war.html

The Bookshelf

CHALLENGING LATE CAPITALISM by Harry R. Targ

Read Challenging Late Capitalism by Harry R. Targ.