POLITICS
It Was a Proxy War From Day One
And now they don’t even care to hide it any longer
There have been statements to that effect in the past. Better them than us. But they were mostly coming from the military. You can always excuse the military for viewing things through the lens of the forever war for the (so-called) defense of Democracy.
The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance.
Thomas Jefferson supposedly said that, but probably not. He also owned slaves, which, one might presume, weren’t very vigilant. A liberty-loving fellow like that must have somehow justified slavery to himself.
He probably didn’t.
Most likely he thought that slavery for non-white people was the natural order of things. Don’t mistake me, every nation has its myths and legends, its faulty heroes, its delusions and its own distortion of truth. Besides, the world was a very different place in the 18th century.
However, the problem with the U.S. of A. is that due to its role as a superpower (and, for a time, the ONLY superpower) those delusions had (and still have) a direct impact not only on its neighbours, (as is the historical norm for any empire), but on literally every country on this planet. The U.S. did earn this position, it wasn’t just granted to it. The world really did need some help back in 1917 and even more so in 1942.
The problem is that once the bald eagle perched on that high pedestal, it wouldn’t leave it for anything.
Have you watched the TV series The Boys? Do you know Homelander? That superhero is the perfect analogy for the U.S. of the post-WW2 era. Undeniably powerful, needing the people’s acceptance and adoration and getting dangerously violent when that need isn’t met or when he needs to prove its power to the world. Homelander believes, beyond any doubt, that he is the face of justice and the whole world owes him for it. However, he has no qualms about having psychopathic murderers or former Nazis as allies, as long as they’re doing what he tells them to do.
Most tellingly, Homelander is effectively owned by a company. Despite all his power, he has to answer to shareholders and a CEO. And they really don’t care about justice. At all.
The U.S. too, although undeniably powerful, has to answer to a whole bunch of CEOs. They make their living on oil and weapons. And, so, the U.S. has to fight using the latter to control as much of the former as possible. The more money it has, the more weapons it can buy to acquire more and more resources. Oh, and protect democracy, of course.
Weapons turn to resources. Resources turn to money. Money turns to weapons. And on and on it goes.
Much like Homelander, the U.S. is so self-absorbed and has internalized its own myth so much, that it’s surprised when people condemn it. It has lost touch with reality. That’s why Mitch McConnell, arguably still the most powerful figure in the GOP, can openly say something like this without batting an eyelid:
“As I’ve said repeatedly, sending lethal western capabilities to the front lines has been a direct investment in America’s own security in a number of concrete ways.
“First, equipping our friends on the front lines to defend themselves is a far cheaper way — in both dollars and American lives — to degrade Russia’s ability to threaten the United States.
Let’s sum this up. A deadly war in Ukraine that’s driving people out of their homes, that’s killing combatants and civilians alike, that is slowly turning the country into rubble is viewed by the U.S. in terms of a direct investment in its own security. It can supply “lethal capabilities” (don’t you just love that political jargon) to the front lines to save dollars and American lives (note: money before lives).
Honestly, I’m reading this again as I’m touching up this piece and I get more nauseous every time. Read it carefully. Not as a piece of empty political prose. Read the actual words as if they were spoken by someone who means them. By someone who truly understands the weight of their meaning. We’re arming the Ukrainians so that they can kill Russians and die instead of us. And, in the end, they’ll even have to pay us for the privilege. This war is so good for us.
Yes, sure, a supporter would say, but Mitch is just pointing out the silver lining in a tragic situation. Ah, but he had this to say about the invasion itself:
“The acute threat of Russian aggression helped wake many of our European friends from a holiday from history. Putin’s escalation drove many of our closest allies to start investing more seriously in their own defense and contribute more readily to collective security.
“This is a positive development, and a critical one as we look toward deterring aggression from China.
No, this is not an isolated part of the remark, as many will claim. Watch the wording of the entire statement. At first it praises the brave Ukrainians, of course, but the positive emphasis is never put on the counter-offensive itself. That was a long-awaited development and we’ve got to this point thanks not only to Ukrainian heroism, but also to NATO aid. Proverbial pat on our back and all. Besides, everyone knows that the Ukrainian counteroffensive might fail to produce the expected results.
The real positive spin is put instead on the fact that the “acute threat of Russian aggression” woke us Europeans from a “holiday from history” and set us on the path of “deterring aggression” from China.
This is called a critically positive development. The fact that Europe is now preparing to move (under U.S. guidance) against China.
Not that Russia is finally on the defensive, even for a while. Not that the war might possibly turn against the invaders. The most positive and critical development coming from the war in Ukraine, according to Mr. McConnell, is the fact that previously neutral countries have applied to join NATO and will now be forced to support the U.S. in its new policy of containment. The fact that countries that were military “freeloaders” in American eyes will now be forced to pull their own weight against the enemies of NATO.
Because, sure, my Eastern European and Scandinavian friends, you might be joining or have already joined NATO as the “North Atlantic” “defensive” alliance to protect yourselves from Russian aggression (in the case of Ukraine, of course, that intention was also the primary reason of said aggression) but what you will gain is a front row ticket to the upcoming mess in the South China Sea.
Needless to say that the U.S. has no interest in the South China Sea, other than a stake in the sizeable fossil fuel deposits. Never mind that we’re supposed to leave all remaining deposits in the ground where they belong, instead of burning them to finish the task of ruining our planet. That’s an entirely different story. Suffice to say, everyone (Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam) wants a piece of that gooey pie under the sea and the only one that can stop China from claiming it is the U.S.
This scenario is not at all unfamiliar to me. Fossil fuel deposits found under the Aegean Sea are contested by Turkey, that wants a piece of the pie. The difference is that both Greece and Turkey are NATO members and allies of the U.S., so it stays neutral in this matter. If China was a member of NATO would the U.S. care to intervene in the South China Sea dispute? Would it care to contain it at all? Why would it?
What McConnell openly admits is that Russia (and Ukraine) are secondary to the main event, which will be played out in the Western Pacific. It’s interesting, also, to note what he called a “holiday from history”. This refers, of course, to the now infamous “End of History”.
Us Europeans didn’t call it that, by the way. That was an assertion by an American political scientist who saw the end of the Soviet Union as proof of the victory of liberal democracy. Apart from the very idea that any such victory or evolution to a “final form” of government was absurd, it was also premature. It ignored, for example, the existence of several allies of the West, oil-rich but very poor on the “democracy” side of things. Saddam Hussein himself was a former ally that turned too big for his own boots when he attempted to grab the oil fields of Kuwait. Just a few short years before, when he gassed the Iranians (and Kurds) using Western-made chemical weapons no one batted an eyelid. As soon as he put Kuwait in his crosshairs, somehow everyone remembered that he was a ruthless dictator.
Of course, Fukuyama’s assertion was wrong even as far as his own country’s viewpoint went. The U.S. needed the “struggle for democracy” to continue, because that’s what greased its war machine and that was (and is) its best business. There’s no real money to be made from ruling a peacefully democratic world. Fukuyama’s mistake was that he really thought it was all about democracy. He failed to see how many decidedly undemocratic states were either allied with, supported or even installed by the U.S. when it was in its interest to do so.
When the Soviet Union was no more, it would be terrorists and the states that supposedly supported them. Now, it’s all about China. Russia is just a nuisance that has to be removed so that it won’t be useful as an ally to the U.S’s new peer competitor. Just like Putin wrecked Georgia so that it wouldn’t be useful to NATO and eventually proceeded to invade Ukraine for pretty much the same reason, with the added goal of maintaining the key naval base of Sevastopol.
That’s why I and so many others have been saying this from the very beginning of the war: Russia and the U.S. are playing the same game, with slightly different methods. China too. The main difference? Russia and China are not pretending to be upholding any kind of “rules-based order”, mainly because said order is called Pax Americana and it’s rigged to promote American interests worldwide. Would they like to impose their own versions if they could? Surely. But Russia and China are playing in their back yards for now, at least on a military level. It’s the U.S. that has been working to contain them both.
Is it any surprise at all, that both Russia and China are unhappy with this policy?
Of course, the U.S. is still officially a democratic country and, therefore, can claim the moral high ground. That’s why it’s also more sensitive to coffins sent back home and why it calls its own war crimes “mistakes” or “oversights” or “collateral damage” or even a “price that was worth it”. The price to be paid is much cheaper, of course, as McConnell so cynically but honestly admits, when no American lives are lost.
Emphasis on the “American”. It doesn’t matter how many Ukrainians or Russians die. As long as it’s “friends” that do the killing and dying, it’s all peachy.
What was it that Henry Kissinger, the infamous warmonger, said about Vietnam and Nguyen Van Thieu?
[…] the nations of the world will learn that being America’s enemy may be dangerous, but being America’s friend is fatal.
