The global economic crisis that has engulfed countries due to Washington’s openly voluntarist and Russophobic policies has not only thrown the United States itself into chaos, but has also destroyed the world’s multipolar model, changed the status of many states, and led to an increase in contradictions between states and coalitions. It is becoming increasingly difficult to solve the problems that have arisen by relying on the principles of the world order from the middle of the last century and disregarding current realities. Therefore, the urgent need to create new rules that can solve today’s global crisis has come to the agenda. Which path this process will take – peaceful or military – time will tell, although any reasonable person understands the lethality of the military option.
The last decades were accompanied by global upheavals – the Warsaw Pact and the entire world system of socialism collapsed, the Soviet Union collapsed, China took the second place in the world economy. Against this background, the United States, believing in its superiority, decided to act according to its own rules, to disregard the norms recognized by international law, and to overcome the crisis by organizing wars, which had long become a traditional US technology. This is exactly what happened in World War I and then in World War II, in which America lost about 400 thousand of its fellow citizens (which is a lot by American standards), but at the same time, unlike the other participants, emerged from that war with a profit.
Thus, the way out of the crisis through war remains an actively used technique for the United States, only the nature of the wars changes. Moreover, the wars or armed conflicts initiated by Washington are usually at a considerable distance from its own territory, so the losses to the United States itself are minimal. Moreover, war is not perceived as something terrible by the average American because the geographic location of the United States, surrounded on both sides by oceans, to the north by good-neighborly Canada, and to the south by Mexico, which is weak compared to the States, gives a false sense of impunity and protection from heavy casualties.
The China Society for Human Rights Studies, in a special analysis piece titled “Severe Humanitarian Disasters Caused by US Aggressive Wars Against Foreign Countries,” has calculated how many wars and humanitarian disasters have been caused by US aggressive foreign policy in the name of world domination. Specifically, it shows that from the end of World War II to 2001, the United States orchestrated 201 of 248 armed conflicts in 153 regions of the world. This does not include wars unleashed by Washington in the Middle East. In addition, the United States has interfered in the affairs of other countries, supported proxy wars, instigated civil wars and separatist conflicts beneficial to the United States, fomented anti-government insurgencies, committed assassinations, supplied arms and munitions, and trained anti-government forces. As a result, the United States has inflicted enormous damage on the social stability and public safety of many countries, including mass casualties, production stoppages, waves of refugees, and social unrest.
In pursuing such a policy, Washington has used a well-known recipe for a way out of its own crisis – that is war, the purpose of which is the destruction of manufactured goods and material resources and the redistribution of property.
Faced with the serious risks of war, Washington imposed a substitute on the world a few years ago – the global COVID -19 pandemic, whose goals were the same – the elimination of the surplus economy, the redistribution of property and the cancelation of debt. Expecting to minimize the United States’ own share of the reduction in the global economy at the expense of the periphery, which must pay for everything, Washington began deploying hundreds of secret bio-labs scattered around the world in advance, expecting that it would be China and Russia who would suffer their worst losses and pay more overall.
Today, a new monkeypox pandemic is on the rise. And under these circumstances, it would hardly be surprising to accuse the United States of causing this pandemic or the change in this virus. By analogy with the recent statements of Jeffrey Sachs, an American scientist who headed the commission investigating the origin of the coronavirus of the authoritative medical journal The Lancet, stating that SARS-CoV-2 was “the result of the activities of American biotechnology laboratories.”
It is already obvious to everyone that the humanitarian crisis caused by Washington’s aggressive actions is due to the hegemonic mentality of the United States. Therefore, it is ridiculous to expect a hegemonic country to protect human rights in other countries or to care about the lives of people on this planet.
The fact that a “victorious war” or vigorous preparation for it would be the best means to lead the American economy out of its growing crisis was recently stated at the Brookings Institution, the leading conservative US center for the study of politics and economics, by former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. He even pointed out in plain language that only war would truly save the American economy and allow it to overcome the negative consequences of the current crisis. And the most obvious example in this regard, in his opinion, is World War II, “when colossal military contracts literally pulled the US economy out of the Depression and had a tremendous effect on the increase in production that was felt after the war ended.”
Implementing these tactics and goals, the United States has intensified its activities to foment armed confrontations in virtually every region of the world in recent months. This has been the aim, in particular, of Washington’s provocation of Moscow’s special operation to denazify Ukraine, the unleashing of the conflict with China and the events over Taiwan, the pressure on Israel to take military action against Syria, Iran and the Palestinians.
And in recent days, it has emerged that the situation in Pakistan, one of the most populous countries in South Asia, which also has nuclear weapons, is about to explode. The reason for the new upheavals in this country was the confrontation between the current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his predecessor Imran Khan, who was known for his anti-American statements. Therefore, today, against the backdrop of a less than ideal economic situation, Pakistan will have to go through a political crisis. Whether this crisis ends with the victory of one of the parties or develops into something more serious, we will see in the near future, as well as the unconditional role of the United States in the next imposition of a new military conflict on the world.
Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.