The Neoconservatives Have Declared War On The Realists

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

In recent years, I"ve increasingly suspected that when it comes to foreign policy, the realists offer some of the most sane observations. 

These suspicions were confirmed earlier this year when after the election of Donald Trump, John Mearsheimer, one of modern realism"s current standard bearers, wrote in The National Interest that Trump should "adopt a realist foreign policy" and outlines a far better foreign policy agenda that what we"ve seen coming from Washington. 

And what is this realist foreign policy? For Mearsheimer, some main tenets include:

• Accepting that the US attempt at nation building in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen "has been an abject failure."


• "Washington [should] respect the sovereignty of other states even when it disagrees with their internal policies."


• "Spreading democracy, especially by force, almost always fails."


• Understanding that "America’s terrorism problem ... is fueled in part by the U.S. military presence on Arab territory as well as the endless wars the United States has waged in the greater Middle East."


• "The Trump administration should let local powers deal with ISIS."


• Recognizing that Russia poses no real threat to the United States: "Even if Russia modernizes its economy and its population grows in the years ahead — big ifs — it will still be unable to project significant military power beyond eastern Europe."


• "A Syria run by Assad poses no threat to the United States"


• "The new president should also work to improve relations with Iran. "


• "Encourage the Europeans to take responsibility for their own security, while gradually reducing the remaining U.S. troops there."

Against Liberal Hegemony

There are some specific recommendations, but in a larger context, Mearsheimer is reflecting what has been building for years among realists led by Barry Posen, Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Harvey Sapolsky, among others: an opposition to so-called "liberal hegemony" 

What is liberal hegemony? It"s ably summed up by William Ruger: 

Liberal hegemony is an activist grand strategy that aims to assertively maintain U.S. dominance and the “unipolar moment” in the service of liberalism and national security. Posen explains that it has been the reigning U.S. grand strategy since the end of the Cold War and remains the consensus view of the foreign-policy establishment of both major parties — of liberal internationalists and neoconservatives alike. Yet he believes it is “unnecessary, counterproductive, costly, and wasteful,” and ultimately “self-defeating.”

The movement against liberal hegemony was crystallized somewhat in 2014 when Posen published Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy, which is a detailed condemnation of liberal hegemony, and instead suggests a policy of "restraint." Restraint, as the name implies, favors far less enthusiasm in using American military force on every political and societal problem in the world, and instead focusing on what constitutes an actual military threat to the US. The ideology of restraint assumes that peace is superior to war, and that constant foreign interventionism is unlikely to bring peace, stability, or justice.)">1

As Ruger notes, this opposition to the current foreign-policy zeitgeist in Washington centers largely around scholars within MIT"s political science program, and has few adherents among the top brass in the military or among politicians on Capitol Hill. 

The Neoconservatives Declare War 

Last week, Commentary magazine, a long-established mouthpiece for hard-line interventionist and neoconservative views issued a denunciation of these realists in a piece titled "Saving Realism from the So-Called Realists." 

For the authors, Hal Brands and Peter Feaver, today"s realists are a disaster: "Today’s most prominent self-identified realists — Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, Barry Posen, and Christopher Layne— advocate a thoroughgoing U.S. retrenchment from global affairs." Abandoning their traditional anti-populism, the authors go on to sneeringly denounce realism and restraint as "academic" and as "some of the most misguided doctrines of the ivory tower."

For interventionists, "retrenchment" is just another word for "isolationism," which of course is the great bogeyman of interventionist foreign policy. Realists have lost their way, we"re told, because they no longer support "forging a stable international order" by which the interventionists mean "non-stop intervention in every region on earth." 

For Brands and Feaver, what is really needed is a return to the good ol" days of "Cold-War realism" in which realists favored far greater level of interventionism in the name of countering the assumed Soviet threat. 

But even in the Cold War, many realists were far better than idealist Wilsonian regime-change advocates like President Lyndon Johnson. Realist George Kennan, for instance, denounced the Vietnam War and objected to viewing the war in terms of "fighting for freedom." 

But even among those realists who were gung ho on military intervention, many were wrong because they were laboring under a mountain of bad information about the Soviets and their economic system. As nearly all the policymakers of their day, the Cold War realists assumed — wrongly — that the communist world was an economic powerhouse, poised to overtake the US in terms of wealth and technology in the near future. They failed to read up on their Ludwig von Mises and understand that the socialist economy was doomed from the start, and would self-destruct from within. Instead, the old realist Cold Warriors accepted the CIA"s "intelligence" on the Soviet economy which vastly overstated the state of the Communist economies. 

At the same time, the Cold War realists were also influenced by hysterical ex-communists like Whittaker Chambers who published jeremiads about how the West was doomed because lazy Westerners could never compete against the communists who were not like ordinary humans. The communists — we were told — ate, slept, and breathed the idea of the communist revolution and would stop at nothing to impose their ideology on the rest of the world, even if it meant certain death for themselves. This then implied that nuclear deterrence would not work, and thus relentless intervention and foreign policy adventurism — such as that in Vietnam — was necessary to overwhelm the Soviet threat. 

Learning from the Past

Today, it may be that modern realists have learned from the mistakes of their grandparents. Contrary to claims that communists would happily throw their lives away in service to the party, it appears communists of old behaved like most everyone else. Many of them were too busy taking bribes and running black markets to busy themselves with taking over the world.  It"s now clear that authoritarian regimes — especially hard-core socialist ones — tend to undermine their own power with their backward economic systems. Experience suggests that nuclear deterrence has worked even with history"s most deranged dictators. It"s now clear that wars such as those in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan have done nothing to enhance the safety of Americans. 

So, it"s hard to fault the realists for learning something from history.

For the advocates of liberal hegemony, on the other hand, there"s nothing to be learned, and it"s heresy to suggest that decades of non-stop American interventionism has not been a success. For them, all this talk of "restraint" is just the ramblings of the "ivory tower."  Instead, we must recover the fervor of the Cold War, listen to the generals, and plan for a third war, a fourth war, and more. No place on earth ought to be considered beyond the reach of American politicians. 

After all, bad things happen in the world, so the US must be forever ready for new invasions, for nation building, and for "humanitarian" efforts, no matter what side effects and opportunity costs these actions may bring. In his essay "Invade the World" Murray Rothbard mocked these ideas — which at the time were gaining currency in the wake of the Cold War. He concluded: 

We must face the fact that there is not a single country in the world that measures up to the lofty moral and social standards that are the hallmark of the U.S.A.: even Canada is delinquent and deserves a whiff of grape. There is not a single country in the world which, like the U.S., reeks of democracy and "human rights," and is free of crime and murder and hate thoughts and undemocratic deeds. Very few other countries are as Politically Correct as the U.S., or have the wit to impose a massively statist program in the name of "freedom," "free trade," "multiculturalism," and "expanding democracy."

And so, since no other countries shape up to U.S. standards in a world of Sole Superpower they must be severely chastised by the U.S., I make a Modest Proposal for the only possible consistent and coherent foreign policy: the U.S. must, very soon, Invade the Entire World! Sanctions are peanuts; we must invade every country in the world, perhaps softening them up beforehand with a wonderful high-tech missile bombing show courtesy of CNN.

Liberal Hegemony: A Program for Global Central Planning 

Fundamentally, the ideology of liberal hegemony is the ideology of total global political centralization. A global system of multiple sovereign states  — a situation far preferable to a single world state — is to be tolerated only in name. For the advocates of liberal hegemony, the de facto world order ought to be one in which a single government — the US government — is entitled to intervene anywhere in the world that it doesn"t like the local regime or doesn"t approve of another state"s internal policies. 

The realists, to their credit, understand that there are limits to this view of the world; that perhaps a single global hegemon is not, in fact, a recipe for an enduring world order. Moreover, the long-term cost of these efforts may prove crippling for US taxpayers both in terms of money and in terms of domestic freedoms.

While far from perfect, the realists have put up some barriers to the US"s non-stop drive to "invade the world." Needless to say, Commentary magazine and its friends in Washington would rather these realists all go away.  

Even Some Allies Fear America

While Machiavellian disciples argue that for a leader it"s better to be feared than loved, the United States often sees itself as a benign hegemon, holding its shielding hand over the world, ever since she won the Second World War.

In fact, as Statista"s Dyfed Loesche notes, many people around the world today fear that the United States isn"t always a force for good in international politics.

According to Pew Research Center, the United States" standing in the world has gone down overall.

You will find more statistics at Statista

Surprisingly, people in allied countries, such as NATO-member Turkey, or partner countries in East Asia, such as South Korea and Japan, feel threatened by American might.

On the other end of the scale, people in India, Israel and Poland have a more positive outlook on America"s role in the world.

What's So Bad About Globalism? (Spoiler Alert: Everything)

Via Jim Goad of Taki"s Magazine blog,

As far as I can tell, globalism is a scheme concocted by the rich to destroy the working and middle classes through worldwide financial imperialism.

I have a strong hunch that globalism is also a plot hatched to obliterate indigenous cultures and real human differences under the deceptive ruses of “multiculturalism” and “diversity.”

This is why I’m confused whenever I hear someone say they hate “the rich,” oppose “imperialism,” and support “the working class” while being an unquestioning cheerleader for open borders and global government.

Like Marxism’s pipe dreams about an eventual and irreversible dictatorship of the proletariat, the most seductive hook about globalism is the idea that it’s inevitable. Technology has made us an increasingly interconnected planet, and therefore the only logical and moral thing to do is establish a benevolent global governmental authority with the power to tax and imprison and torture and abuse.

But communism proved to be far from inevitable. After peaking last century, it has retreated from much of the globe. I’d like to think the same is true about the one-world-government schemes that underpin what is cheerily referred to as “globalism.”

I suppose that if you fetishize some dimwitted internationalist abstraction of the global “working class,” globalism may suit your emotional needs and your complicated bourgeois psychological issues regarding “wealth guilt” just fine. But if you support the American working class—and more importantly, if you happen to be a member of the American working class—you’d realize that globalism is your sworn enemy.

Those who’ve lived most of their lives with a sad and simple choice between working and starving can feel the disdain that the sneering global elites have not only for them personally, but for their culture and their humanity and their very existence.

Whatever jobs these wealth-crazed control freaks couldn’t pack into wooden crates and send overseas, they are more than happy to undercut wages here by importing “migrants” both legal and illegal who have nothing in common with you culturally and are trained to deride you as an evolutionary throwback if you dare to complain that the elites are laughing in your face as they pull the rug out from under you.

Globalism replaces First World workers with Third World workers and calls them “racists”—the modern equivalent of “niggers”—if they dare to make a peep about it. While it may be a boon for transnational financiers and manual laborers in Malaysia, for workers throughout the West, globalism has been a trapdoor through which they are likely to hang swinging at any moment. For the Western working class, globalism has meant retreat and defeat and dislocation.

After November’s election, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon described what had happened:

The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get fucked over.

But as many of us are learning, the mere act of realizing you’re being fucked over—much less trying to stop it from happening—automatically makes you a Nazi and an anti-Semite and a white supremacist and a toothless, low-information rube who needs to be replaced on the assembly line by someone with more melanin and less money.

As the world’s financial elites grow more rootless and international, they no longer even pretend to find a common bond with the peasants and the pissants in the countries who host them. Instead, they openly deride them.

But to the horror and dismay of the ultra-arrogant cosmopolites, the rural rubes in flyover country are waking up to the fact that at the very best, they are viewed as obstacles to progress. At the very worst, they sense that the global planners would have no problem bulldozing straight over their corpses in order to pave the way for such “progress.”

Those who constantly slam “the rich” while naively embracing globalism and every attendant butterfly-chasing PC delusion fail to realize that almost without exception, global finance, global media, and global corporate culture are solidly behind this daffy, one-world movement of free trade, open borders, and PC thought-policing. The charitable foundations and the think tanks and the NGOs have all signed up for this mission that purportedly will uplift the masses and bring the rich to heel, yet very few people seem to find this even remotely suspicious. “The rich” are backing a movement that superficially demonizes “the rich” yet only makes them richer, but if you say anything about it, you’re a Nazi.

But beyond the galloping economic hypocrisy, the most loathsome thing about unbridled globalism is the toxic contempt its peddlers have for indigenous cultures, specifically European ones. For all the lip service they pay to the alleged “rights” of men who think they’re women to take a dump in the ladies’ room, they are blithely unconcerned with the fact that their unhindered financial and cultural predations are wiping out whole cultures across the globe in the service of creating one bland, deracinated, medicated, propaganda-addled, compliant consumer culture.

But in their blind quest for uniformity, they will never eradicate conflict. Globalism will only replace wars between nations with wars within former nations. It takes battles that formerly took place on borders and spreads them from street to street. It’s possible that rather than global harmony, endless and irrevocable conflict is globalism’s true end game.

Whether by accident or design, a sick irony about globalism is that it often poses as a humane antidote and a form of ongoing karmic retribution for European colonialism. As the argument goes, the fact that France unfairly colonized parts of Northern Africa means that the righteous thing is for Northern Africans to culturally and demographically colonize France. Apparently these dreamers’ parents never taught them that two wrongs don’t make a right and will likely lead to more conflict and bloodshed.

As an anti-collectivist by nature, I find something nightmarish about the specter of a global government with unelected officials overriding my will—and very often the raging majority’s will—at every turn. I don’t care to have every particle of my life micromanaged by people 5,000 miles away whom I wouldn’t trust to pick my nose.

John Lennon can be fairly viewed as the first pop-star globalist, and his naïve 1971 hit “Imagine” is venerated as a globalist anthem. He imagined a world with no countries, no private property, no murder, and universal cooperation. While he was imagining all this, a crazed fan pulled out a gun and blew Lennon’s brains out. Lennon sang that all we needed was love. What he needed that night was a gun.

The Geopolitics Of 2017 In 4 Maps

Submitted by George Friedman and Jacob Shapiro via MauldinEconomics.com,

International relations and geopolitics are not synonymous... at least, not the way we understand them at Geopolitical Futures. “International relations” is a descriptive phrase that encompasses all the ways countries behave toward one another. “Geopolitics” is the supposition that all international relationships are based on the interaction between geography and power.

Our brand of geopolitics takes this a step further and asserts that a deep understanding of geography and power enables you to do two things. First, it helps you comprehend the forces that will shape international politics and how they will do so. Second, it allows you to identify what is important and what isn’t.

This makes maps an extremely important part of our work. Writing can be an ideal medium for explaining power, but even the best writer is limited by language when it comes to describing geography. So this week, we have decided to showcase some of the best maps our graphics team (TJ Lensing and Jay Dowd) made in 2016… not just because these four maps are cool (though they are), but because we think they go a long way in explaining the foundations of what will be the most important geopolitical developments of 2017.

Map 1: Russia’s Economic Weakness

Click to enlarge

This map illustrates three key aspects of Russia that are crucial to understanding the country in 2017. First is the oft-overlooked fact that Russia is a federation. Russia has a strong national culture, but it is also an incredibly diverse political entity that requires a strong central government. Unlike most maps of Russia, this one divides the country by its constitutive regions. There are 85 of these regions… 87 if you count Crimea and Sevastopol. Not all have the same status—some are regions, while others are autonomous regions, cities, and republics.

The second aspect is that there is a great deal of economic diversity in this vast Russian Federation. The map shows this by identifying regional budget surpluses and deficits throughout the country. Two regions have such large surpluses that they break the scale: the City of Moscow and Sakhalin. Fifty-two regions (or 60% of Russia’s regional budgets) are in the red. The Central District, which includes Moscow, makes up more than 20% of Russia’s GDP, while Sakhalin and a few other regions that are blessed with surpluses produce Russia’s oil.

The third aspect follows from combining the logical conclusions of the first two observations. Russia is vast, and much of the country is in a difficult economic situation. Even if oil stays around $55 a barrel for all of 2017, that won’t be high enough to solve the problems of the many struggling parts of the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin rules as an authoritarian. This is, in part, because he governs an unwieldy country. He needs all the power he can get to redistribute wealth so that the countryside isn’t driven to revolt.

Russia is making headlines right now because of Ukraine, Syria, and alleged hacking. But the geopolitical position of Russia is better described by studying the map above.

Map 2: China’s Cage

Click to enlarge

Maps that shift perspective can be disorienting, but they are meant to be. Our minds get so used to seeing the world in one way that a different view can feel alien. But that is even more reason to push through the discomfort. The map above attempts to do that by looking at the Pacific from Beijing’s perspective.

China"s moves in the South China Sea have received a great deal of attention. In a Jan. 12 confirmation hearing with Congress, nominee for US Secretary of Defense James Mattish identified Chinese aggressiveness as one of the major reasons he believes the world order is under its biggest assault since World War II. But we believe the Chinese threat is overstated. This map helps explain why.

China’s access to the Pacific is limited by two obstacles. The first is the small island chains in the South and East China Seas. When we look at this map, China’s motive in asserting control over these large rocks and molehills becomes clear. If China cannot control these islands and shoals, they can be used against China in a military conflict. (If there were small island chains off the US coast in the Pacific or the Atlantic, US strategy might look like China’s.)

The second obstacle is that China is surrounded by American allies. Some such as Japan (and to a lesser extent South Korea and Taiwan) have significant military forces to defend themselves from Chinese encroachment. Taiwan sticks out as a major spur aimed squarely at China’s southeast coast. Those that don’t have sufficient military defenses, like the Philippines, have firm US security guarantees. China is currently at a serious geographic disadvantage in the waters off its coast.

This map, though, does not reveal a critical third piece of this puzzle—the US Navy outclasses the Chinese navy in almost every regard, despite impressive and continuing Chinese efforts to increase capabilities. But looking at this map, you can see why China wants to make noise in its coastal waters and how China is limited by an arc of American allies. You can also see why one of China’s major goals will be to attempt to entice any American allies to switch sides. Consequently, China’s moves regarding the Philippines require close observation in 2017.

Map 3: Redrawing the Middle East

Click to enlarge

It has become cliché to point out that the Middle East’s current political borders were drawn after World War I by colonial powers like the United Kingdom and France, and that the region’s wars and insurrections in recent years are making these artificial boundaries obsolete. What isn’t cliché is doubling down on that analysis. We’ve drawn a new map of the Middle East based on who controls what territory, as opposed to the official boundaries recognized by international organizations like the United Nations.

The map above reveals what the Middle East really looks like right now. Many will object to some of the boundaries for political purposes, but this map is explicitly not trying to make a political statement. Rather, it is an attempt to show who holds power over what geography in the Middle East.

From this point of view, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya don’t exist anymore. In their places are smaller warring statelets based on ethnic, national, and sectarian identities. Other borders (like those of Lebanon and Israel) are also redrawn to reflect actual power dynamics. Here, a politically incorrect but accurate map is more useful than an inaccurate but politically correct one.

Just as important as redrawing the borders of countries that no longer function as unified entities is noting which countries’ borders do not require redrawing. These countries include three of the region’s four major powers: Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The borders of the other major power, Israel, are only slightly modified. (Egypt is an economic basket case and does not qualify as a major power, even though it has arguably the most cohesive national culture in the Arab world.)

The Middle East is defined by two key dynamics: the wars raging in the heart of the Arab world and the balance of power between the countries that surround this conflict.

Map 4: Imagining 2017’s Brexit

Click to enlarge

Analyzing this map must begin with a disclaimer: This is, first and foremost, an analytical tool and a means of thinking about Europe’s future. It is explicitly not a prediction of what Europe’s borders will look like in the future.

The map identifies areas in Europe with strong nationalist tendencies. Those regions with active separatist movements are not italicized. The italicized regions are those demanding increased autonomy but not independence. In many of these regions, secessionist movements may be favored by a minority of the population. The point here is not their size, but rather that in all these regions, there is some degree of national consciousness that is dissonant with the current boundaries of Europe’s nation-states.

The European Union is a flawed institution because its members could never decide what they wanted it to be. The EU is not quite a sovereign entity, but it claims more authority than a free trade agreement. European nation-states gave up some of their sovereignty to Brussels… but not all of it. So when serious issues arose (such as the 2008 financial crisis or the influx of Syrian and other refugees), EU member states went back to solving problems the way they did before the EU. Instead of “one for all and all for one,” it was “to each their own, but you still have to buy German products.”

Brexit shook the foundations of the EU in 2016. Elections in France and Germany and domestic instability in Italy will shake those foundations in 2017. But Brexit also opened the doors to a deeper question: How will national self-determination be defined in the 21st century? Not all of Europe’s nation-states are on stable ground. The most important consequences of Brexit may end up being its impact on the political future of the United Kingdom. And in Spain, Catalonia already claims it will hold an independence referendum this year.

Brussels, meanwhile, keeps trying to speak with one voice. This map communicates just how hard that is… not just for the EU, but also for some of Europe’s nation-states.

Conclusion

The saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. Maps are worth many more. Our perspective on the world is rooted in an objective and unbiased approach to examining geography and power. Maps like these are foundational components for building that perspective. These four maps are especially helpful in thinking about the geopolitical forces that will shape the world in the year ahead.

*  *  *

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve shared some sneak peeks of our 24-page forecast, The World in 2017. If you’ve enjoyed these snapshots, you can now download your free copy of a special report that further illuminates the year ahead. The report, Top 3 Economic Surprises for 2017, contains information on what the future holds for three geopolitically important countries. Simply click here to get your free copy.

25 Years Of Neocon-Neoliberalism: Great For The Top 5%, A Disaster For Everyone Else

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

It cannot be merely coincidental that the incomes and wealth of the top 5% have pulled away from the stagnating 95% in the 25 years dominated by neocon-neoliberalism.

One unexamined narrative I keep hearing is: "OK, so neocon-neoliberalism was less than ideal, but Trump could be much worse." Let"s start by asking: would Syrian civilians agree with this assessment? The basic idea in the "OK, so neocon-neoliberalism was less than ideal, but Trump could be much worse" narrative is that the modest problems created by neocon-neoliberalism will pale next to what Trump will do, implying jackbooted Waffen SS troops will soon be marching through America on Trump"s orders.

This narrative is yet another example of American parochialism: since neocon-neoliberalism didn"t cause American cities to be bombed and its institutions demolished, it"s really not that bad.

Try telling that to the Iraqis, Libyans and Syrians who have been on the receiving end of neocon-neoliberalism policies. The reality is very unpleasant: for those targeted by America"s neocon-neoliberalism, nothing worse is imaginable, because the worst has already happened.

The cold reality is America"s 25 years of neocon-neoliberalism has been great for the top 5% and an unmitigated disaster for everyone else in the U.S. and the nations it has targeted for intervention.

Those defending the Democratic Party"s 16 years of neocon-neoliberalism (Clinton and Obama) and the Republican Party"s 8 years of neocon-neoliberalism (Bush) are defending a system that benefited the few at the expense of the many.

Rather than admit the past 25 years have been catastrophic for the bottom 95%, the apologists speak darkly of fantastical visions of a Nazi America as a diversion to the grim truth that they have blindly supported an evil Empire that has stripmined the bottom 95% in America and laid waste to entire nations abroad.

Neoconservatism"s malignant spores hatched in the Reagan years, and spread quickly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Stripped to its essence, Neoconservatism is American Exceptionalism turned into a global entitlement: it"s our right to intervene anywhere in the world we choose to defend what we perceive as our interests, and it"s our right to impose our version of democracy and a market economy on other peoples.

Self-interest melds seamlessly with moral superiority in neocon-neoliberalism. The moral justification is: since ours is the best possible system, we"re doing you a favor by tearing down your institutions and imposing our system on you. The self-interest is: garsh, the "market" we imposed extracts your resources and benefits our banks and corporations. Amazing, isn"t it, how "free markets" benefit everyone?

But not equally. The claim of neoliberalism is: everything is transformed for the better when it is turned into a market. Once buyers and sellers can meet in a transparent marketplace, everybody prospers and everything becomes more efficient.

Stripped to its essence, neoliberalism is: the markets we set up are rigged to favor those at the top. All that talk about free markets is just public-relations cover to mask an intrinsically rigged quasi-market that has features of "real" markets while beneath the surface, it"s rigged to the advantage of big players at the top of the wealth-power pyramid.

Neoconservatism and neoliberalism are both inherently global, and so globalization is the necessary outcome. There is no market that cannot be skimmed for outsized profits once it has been globalized, and so once bat guano becomes a global tradeable commodity, Goldman Sachs establishes a bat guano trading desk. (This is a spoof, but you get the point.)

Neoconservatism entitles the U.S. to have an "interest" (as in profitable interest) in every nook and cranny of the planet. Policy changes in Lower Slobovia? It"s in our "interest" to monitor those changes and intervene if the policies are "not in our interests."

Neocon-neoliberalism is brilliantly evil because it masks its true objectives behind such warm and fuzzy PR. Those looking for enemies of the people will find them not on the streets of America in cartoonish display but in the corridors of financial and policy power.

Dear apologists of the status quo: do you understand you"re defending this?

Notice how the wealth of the bottom 90% nosedived once neocon-neoliberalism became the de facto policy of Democrats and Republicans alike. No wonder Obama"s two terms seemed like Bush terms 3 and 4--in terms of a continuation of neocon-neoliberalism, they were.

Yes, profound changes in technology, automation, and geopolitics have influenced finance and wealth, but it cannot be merely coincidental that the incomes and wealth of the top 5% have pulled away from the stagnating 95% in the 25 years dominated by neocon-neoliberalism:

The United States And The Race For Global Hegemony

Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via Strategic-Culture.org,

The previous article focused on the definition of an international order, globalization, geopolitical theories and how this has changed the notion with which a nation exercises control over a foreign country. In this second part I intend to examine the various geopolitical theories, their translations into modern concepts, and practical actions that the United States have undertaken in recent decades to aspire to global dominance.

The Strategy Of Rimland

Keeping in mind the geopolitical theories discussed in my previous article, we understand that in order to achieve control over the so called-Heartland, Washington has often resorted to the Spykman theory (Rimland). This is because the US has repeatedly found it extremely difficult to directly control the powers that occupy the geographical space described in the Heartland theory of Mackinder, namely Iran, Russia and China.

The US has repeatedly tried to ensure that nations composing the Inner Circle (Rimland) remained under their control so as to indirectly control the Heartland and encircle it.

In this sense, Europe was conquered thanks to the Second World War and the American intervention against Nazi Germany. The end of World War II saw Europe become an integral part of the US Atlantic system, an important part of surrounding the Heartland.

The expansion and conquest of other areas of the Rimland (Inner Crescent) continued during the Cold War in Asia through wars in Korea and Vietnam. But its failure left serious doubts about Washington"s ability to sustain its military power projection so far away from home, trying to occupy foreign countries with troops on the ground. There were limits to seeking to rule the world.

In the Middle East, another area of paramount significance, Washington has always had as its primary goal the prevention of post-revolutionary Iran conquering the area. For this reason the Saudis have always been great American allies. They are the chosen regional power, thanks to oil and the financial system of petrodollars, with the purpose of ensuring a constant pressure on Iran and surrounding nations in the interests of Washington’s against Heartland nations such as Iran. In this sense, Turkey is unsurprisingly a NATO member incorporated into the Western system of power.

The final strategy has always been the same: to control nations neighboring the Heartland (Rimland countries) through direct military intervention, economic and financial terrorism, or cultural soft power -- all for the purpose of putting pressure on Russia, Iran and China.

The American unipolar moment began in earnest following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, thereby offering the American elite the crazy idea of seeking to achieve total global hegemony by conquering the nations of the Heartland, especially through economic and military means.

During the Cold War, the more realistic goal was to prevent other nations from forming an alliance that would manage and occupy the heart of the land. With the end of the Soviet Union, the main occupier of the Heartland and main rival to the United States had collapsed. This led to the idea of world domination by Washington becoming reality.

From Mahan to MacKinder

The United States has always placed great importance on Mahan’s theory, considering it a complement to physical invasion by land as well as economic domination of the countries composing the Heartland and Rimland. For nearly a century it has been a fundamental pillar of American doctrine in matters of foreign policy.

The US Navy has often played a decisive role in US victories from the beginning of the twentieth century up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the First and Second World Wars included. In the years that followed, its decline has had direct consequences for the implementation of the plan for global domination based on the three geopolitical theories analyzed above, practically setting aside Mahan’s theory in particular in order to focus on domination of land.

From 1990 to 2005, the importance of aircraft carriers and air support during the many US wars have been fundamental. Nevertheless, the bulk of the work has always been done by ground troops. Fighting took place not between countries or between ships or aircrafts but on the ground with the assistance of ships and aircrafts. It is a fundamental difference.

Since 1989, the influence of Mahan’s theory has been gradually decreasing in the strategies employed by policy-makers in the Pentagon, favoring instead land invasions, such as with Iraq and Afghanistan, or favoring the so-called soft power approach in the form of revolts, coups or armed insurrections as in Ukraine, Libya and Syria. The relative decline of the US naval fleet has therefore been a predictable consequence.

Forget about Mahan, here is MacKinder + Globalization

A powerful instrument for subduing the nations of the Heartland, in addition to boot on the ground and the dollar, has been globalization. To work, world globalism requires the absence of sovereignty for individual nations, regardless of whether they are allies or not, as well as massive economic interdependence, dictated by a financial system based on the dollar and completely arranged in favor of Washington and the Federal Reserve. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States forged ??a global neo-liberal model, based on the concept of consumerism and a parasitic capitalist economy, in combination with the unbridled use of military power.

With the collapse of the former Soviet republics, Washington began to move closer to the Heartland, mainly over land, increasingly moving up to the borders of the Russian Federation. The EU widened the membership of these countries in 2004, then incorporated them into NATO.

To achieve global domination Russia has to be controlled in virtue of the position it occupies in the Heartland. Given the military power of the United States in 1989, lacking any credible rivals, the MacKinder theory began to take shape in terms of a strategic approach from Washington’s perspective. This happened to the detriment of the Spykman theory, which preferred focusing on the Rimland countries and seas and oceans surrounding them using the Mahan theory of sea power to control the commerce and routes of rimland countries, thereby indirectly controlling the Heartland. This change in approach, with less naval power and more boots on the ground, together with economic power, continued to expand until the Obama administration.

With the ultimate goal of controlling Russia, the economic war by the Western elites in the early 1990s, thanks to Gorbachev and Yeltsin, ought to be revisited. This attitude revealed the intentions of Western elites, and only after a blatant refusal by Putin in 2000 to surrender the sovereignty of Russia to bow down before Washington, relations plummeted. Putin opposes economic and financial globalization, a western ploy to obtain a military surrender by getting the gobalists’ hands on the most valuable piece of the Heartland: Russia. With this concept in mind, it is easy to understand why Putin is so misrepresented by the Western media, all owned by large publishing groups, part of the international financial oligarchies.

The war in Afghanistan, the opening of NATO bases around Russia’s borders, the use of soft power in Ukraine for regime change through a coup, and destabilization using terrorism in Asia and in the center of the Caucasus, are part of a wider strategy to encircle and contain Russia, with goal of forcing Moscow to cry uncle and be incorporated into the Atlanticist network, by hook or by crook.

The ultimate goal always leads back to the question of being able to control the heart of the earth and its resources, represented largely by Russia, Iran and China. The ultimate goal is to gain a stranglehold on the rest of the continents, from Europe to Asia, enabling virtual control of the entire globe. The mission is always the same. It never changes. It is world domination. The approach alone changed once the Berlin Wall fell. The United States’ confidence in its own cultural, economic and military resources from 1989 has led it to construct an international system based on the principle of corrupt turbo-capitalism in combination with a strong dose of military bullying. Washington’s neoliberal ideas have often enjoyed strong momentum and huge support thanks to the military. Washington found itself in a position to intervene in almost every global situation using tools like soft power in regime change (Ukraine), the Arab Spring (Tunisia and Egypt), and even resorting to hard power through military aggression in so-called nation-building projects (Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan).

The aim, as always, is to put the Heartland under pressure coming from every direction, until its economic collapse and the final military conquest.

Even the US military bases follow this logic, surrounding the Heartland through the nations of the Rimland. Not surprisingly, Iran, China and Russia appear to be completely surrounded in a land-based approach a la MacKinder. Another example is the ABM Systems (Anti-Ballistic Missile) targeting China, Russia and Iran in order obviate their ability to inflict casualties on the United States in the event of war.

In this sense, another vital nation for US Interests is Japan, which represents a formidable containment towards China. On the island of Okinawa alone, about 400 kms from the Chinese coast, about thirteen US military bases are hosted. Similarly, all the countries overlooking the seas bordering the Rimland are strategically important countries for Washington. No wonder panic has been induced by Duterte’s victory in the Philippines. Special attention continues to be given to the nations of Southeast Asia, like Vietnam and Malaysia. Washington fears having fewer allies in its strategy of subduing the Rimland in order to contain China.

Looking at a map it is easy to see how the American empire pushes towards the Heartland from all directions, directly or indirectly, together with its allies. Against the Republic of China there is pressure from the south-east, courtesy of Japan and the US naval presence in the China Sea. From the west pressure is exerted against Russia by expanding NATO/EU. From the south-west, pressure is brought to bear on Iran through the Saudis, Qatar, and US bases in the Middle East. To the south, in addition to NATO member Turkey, Washington would like to team up with India to complete the encirclement of Russia, representing a huge missing piece that makes clear the importance of New Delhi in American strategy.

The last twenty-five years were dominated by policy makers in the US who, firstly, had the idea that direct conquest of the Heartland nations (and some Rimland nations) was possible and, secondly, that it was preferable to pursue a conquest by land of the relevant area and that this was the perfect historical moment to do so. Hitler thought the same way. Not only cultural and economic control was being suggested, but a real military approach to impose a solution acceptable to the elites in Washington. The countless wars since 1989 -- Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Iraq -- have been a strategic choice employing ground forces for the purpose of conquest. At the same time we must not forget the soft power used during the Arab Spring and in Ukraine. These are complementary approaches, updating a hundred years later the theory designed by MacKinder to the technology now at our disposal, while offering the military option to conquer the nations of the Heartland. This doctrine has placed to the side the naval approach, theorized by Mahan, which provided the use of ships to block commercial routes, and using the supremacy of the seas to contain the Rimland, thereby dominating the Heartland and mastering the world.

The most recent doctrines, from the administrations of Bush to Obama, have used a mix of MacKinder’s theory in combination with the latest tactics that apply human rights, known as soft power. The consequences of this approach have led to unimaginable disaster for the United States, where we see the Middle East sinking deeper into chaos and increasingly pushing countries of the region into a Shia alliance. This has led to increasingly united objectives for nations like Iran, China, India and Russia (a complete failure of the the Cold War objective that aimed to prevent an alliance between China and Russia). More generally, India still remains an ally of Moscow and on good terms with Washington, deciding not to openly side with one or the other.

The next article will focus on the reactions that Iran, China and Russia have adopted over the years to repel the continual assault on their sovereignty, and how the American drive for global hegemony has actually accelerated the end of America"s unipolar moment, giving birth to the multipolar reality in which we live. The fourth and last article will focus on the new Trump administration, and how it will probably change the approach to US foreign policy that has prevailed over the last 30 years – a throwback to the last century.