The Method to the Madness of Endless American Wars
© AP Photo / Jonathan Ernst
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During the Cold War, the United States was engaged in perpetual wars, conflicts, assassinations and coups all over the world. It was all done in the name of fighting communism.
If people expected peace in the post-USSR era, they were in for a surprise. The warmongers simply created new excuses – fighting dictators, countering non-existent WMD, global war on terrorism, saving Europe from its win-win relationship with Russia etc. While this may seem irrational, there is a devious logic to the chaos of the US empire. In fact, devastating wars are now essential to the survival of US hegemony and even its survival as a Republic. Let’s explore this complex issue of multiple dimensions.
War is a Racket
That the profits of the US military industrial complex (MIC) are one of the driving forces behind America’s perpetual wars is well known. In his farewell speech, US President Eisenhower warned about the extraordinary powers of the MIC. In 2023, the Pentagon handed out nearly $500 billion to “defense” contractors, who engage in ruthless price gouging. Of course, the U.S. Department of Defense is full of former employees of the MIC, so the grift goes on unabated. Companies like Lockheed Martin get 75% of their revenue from the government. The MIC also spends a lot of money on “lobbying” – legalized bribing – to make sure that Congress approves all the lavish requests. Welcome to free-market capitalism and democracy!
However, the US military serves a bigger purpose – it acts as the “gangster of capitalism,” as the most decorated American General Smedley Butler put it a century ago. In his 1935 book, “War is a Racket,” Gen. Butler described how he helped American banks and corporations:
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and, during that period, I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.
In China, in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.”
Nothing has changed over the last century, except for the names of giant corporations – Google, Microsoft, Blackrock etc. did not exist then. However, US generals do not speak such truth anymore, since they need lucrative jobs in corporate America after retirement. The revolving door silences everyone.
Wars Maintain US Hegemony
Wars are also tools to eliminate non-compliant countries and ensure continued obedience of others. For example, the brutal destruction of Libya in 2011 by US/NATO served two purposes: Get rid of an oil competitor for US oil companies and send a warning to other countries in the region. “If you don’t sign up for the US-led world order, this is what awaits you.”
What can a country do to avoid facing the wrath of the US military?
Trade in US dollar
Buy US debt and US weapons with your excess dollar
Allow US military base in your country
Borrow loans from the IMF and the World Bank
Open up your economy to US corporations and banks
Have your national media copy-paste articles from the US media
Don’t challenge the US in foreign policy; and vote with the US at the UN
Be ready to join American wars when needed
If you’re a developing country, have your people work for Western corporations at low-low wages
If you’re an advanced nation, do not create competitors for the US in leading-edge technologies
Sell your natural resources to Western corporations for pennies on the dollar
Have your leaders deposit their corrupt money in Western banks and offshore accounts
Stop working with the enemies of the US empire – for example: don’t buy Russian oil, Chinese 5G base stations etc.
Thus, the playbook is quite comprehensive and has worked successfully for enemies and allies alike. This is why the US military has 800 bases and “lily pads” in 140 countries.
In fact, there is no such thing as an “ally,” which is a euphemism for a vassal. Countries like Germany, Japan and South Korea are literally occupied by US military and spying agencies. The deep state thus makes sure that the entire establishment – politics, media, banks, corporations, military – stays obedient.
The vassals also maintain conflict in order to justify their occupation by the US. Thus, South Korea is not allowed to make peace with North Korea; Germany is not allowed to make peace with Russia; Japan is not allowed to make peace with China and so on.
It is sad to see vassal countries not only lose their sovereignty but commit suicide in order to sustain American tyranny. Japan, for example, was leading the world in electronics, automobile and semiconductors in the early 1980s. The Japanese even created their own operating system for computers. However, the US stole all the Japanese chip technology, killed that operating system, moved Toyota factories to the US, forced yen to appreciate wildly, and demolished the Japanese economy. Incredibly, Japan’s GDP today is the same as it was in 1993. This is economic genocide.
Similar thing is happening to Europe, which is being “Japanified” in terms of the economy, while the European culture is being eviscerated through migration of refugees from countries bombed by the US.
The EU’s GDP in 2020 was smaller than it was in 2008, when the US-led financial crisis brought the European economy to its knees. And now the Europeans are committing further economic and geopolitical suicide by antagonizing Russia and China.
EU GDP
© S. L. Kantan
Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe is killing its industries – especially the famed Mittlestand, the small-business manufacturing innovators. Without cheap energy from Russia, there is no hope for the German economy. Germans do not even have the freedom of speech to talk about the US blowing up the Nordstream pipeline.
However, the problem in Europe has been festering for a long time. Think about why Europeans never created their versions of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, cloud computing, ChatGPT etc. Not because Europeans cannot replicate those American products; it’s because the US empire would not allow it.
Hybrid Wars
American wars are not always fighter jets and tanks invading other countries. After the disastrous failures in Korea and Vietnam, the US has resorted to indirect or hybrid wars.
Proxy war like the one we are witnessing in Ukraine is a good example. Sometimes, it does not work – like how the US tried to turn India into a pawn against China, but the two countries reached rapprochement during the recent BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia. However, the use of Afghan Mujahideen against the USSR was the first use of jihadists at scale; and it was repeated in Kosovo, Chechnya, Syria etc.
When the jihadist plan does not manifest itself into a full-blown war, the US is satisfied with separatist movements like in Xinjiang. And if that fails, the US turns it into a human rights campaign and even accusations of genocide as done against China.
Sanctions are, of course, economic wars, which are widely used to bully countries, corporations and leaders around the world. Vast majority of developing nations are under some form of US sanctions now. Of course, US sanctions really mean sanctions by Europe and much of the world, which are forced to follow US sanctions. For example, the US has placed 1000+ Chinese tech companies – including flagship firms like Huawei – under sanctions. This is the power of the US dollar.
There are also other forms of economic wars such as making Western investors suddenly pull money out of a country, downgrading the bonds of countries by using Western rating agencies, and destroying the value of currencies. This is why China has strict but smart controls over its currency and its stock markets.
The US also puts pressure on other countries to not join BRICS or Belt and Road Initiative. This is illegal, immoral and in violation of international rules, but the Empire tramples over everyone and everything to maintain its primacy.
Finally, color revolutions and coups are clever ways to foment regime change in countries where the leaders refuse to bow to the US empire. Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh have been recent feathers in the empire’s cap. In Hong Kong, Thailand, Kazakhstan and Belarus, US attempts failed. In the country of Georgia, the US keeps trying to install its puppets and turn the country into another sacrificial pawn like Ukraine.
The US’ attitude towards India is changing rapidly. Soon, Sikh separatists and Kashmir separatists are going to receive love and attention from Washington DC and its army of NGOs.
Regardless of all Privileges…
Given the exorbitant privilege of the US dollar and its sole superpower status after the Cold War, one would expect the average American to be prosperous and happy. However, as I have detailed in my previous articles – listed below – life for a majority of Americans is quite bleak.
US Empire Needs a Debt Reset to Survive
If you looked at the US in the 1930s, it was a very poor country. More than half of all Americans lived in rural areas, and 90% of the rural households did not have electricity or indoor plumbing. What helped the US get out of the Great Depression and then rapidly become a superpower was WW2 when Europe destroyed itself. European scientists helped the US develop the atomic bomb, which the US ruthlessly deployed to crush Japan.
This is the biggest lesson for the managers of the US empire: Destroy others in order to stay #1. If it’s not directly possible to destroy the rivals, make the rivals fight one another. If not, find a geopolitical puppet who would die fighting an American enemy. We can see this in the Ukraine-Russia war, Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and the future plans to make Japan and the Philippines fight China.
More urgently for the US, it is drowning in unsustainable debt. It is borrowing $2-$3 trillion a year. Within two years, the interest payments on the US federal government’s debt will be twice as big as the military spending. To make things worse, the entire world is embracing de-dollarization; and dozens of countries are lining up to join the new BRICS Plus. In other words, without a Great Reset, the US will be bankrupt soon.
This is why the US is pushing the world towards WW3. Americans need to defeat Iran, Russia and China in order to complete domination of the world. Hence, all the wars we are witnessing right now.
Conclusion
The US attitude towards geopolitics and humanity is very warped. Rather than a friendly competition in economy, technology and development, the globalists running the US empire are obsessed with power and domination. The swarm of elites does not have a long-term vision for America or the world.
What would the US accomplish by global domination? Nothing. They cannot even maintain a harmonious and prosperous nation; how are they going to run the world?
The West does not have philosophers anymore like it once did – Plato, Socrates, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Mill, Locke and so on. Instead, the West is run by devious and manipulative globalists, who promote degeneracy, death and destruction.
Hopefully, Russia, China, India and the rest of the Global South will succeed and build a better world in the 21st century.
