UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
It was to be the “American Century.” Ordained by the Universe and God Himself. America, the “exceptional nation,” was destined to rule the world. At long last, Mackinder’s Heartland, Ukraine, would be brought into the American orbit. Russia would fall, be broken into pieces, its resources opened for plunder. China would be next – Taiwan the sacrificial puppet. It was to be the “American Century.” It would also be the greatest moment of imperial hubris in human history.
Rather than allowing Ukraine and Western Europe to live peacefully, with mutually beneficial trade relationships with Russia and China, the US had to move NATO east into Ukraine. Taiwan had to be armed with US weaponry. Russia and China had to be subdued, controlled, reduced to their lower place in history. But close behind were the unintended consequences that follow from decisions made by historically limited people, blinded by ideological beliefs, living in a self-serving echo chamber.
Russia is now stronger than ever before – both economically and militarily. The Donbas region, along with Crimea and other ethnically Russian parts of Ukraine, will become part of Russia. A large majority of the global population blames the US and NATO expansion for the loss of over 500,000 Ukrainian solders and the displacement of several million Ukrainian citizens, massively exacerbating the European immigration crises the US already caused by illegally devastating Iraq and Libya. Western Europe, especially Germany, is in serious economic decline because they lost their energy supplies and friendly trade relationship with Russia. Russia and China have become staunch allies. The dollar is in the process of being replaced as the world’s reserve currency as the Russian ruble and Chinese renminbi assume preeminence. Many nations around the world have applied for membership in BRICS. China is vastly growing its naval fleet and nuclear arms because the US is surrounding China, as it did Russia, with military bases and is trying to create a second Ukraine in Taiwan. The Middle East is uniting like never before because of the US supported slaughter, genocide and murder of women and children by Israel in Gaza. America and Israel are becoming pariahs, hated by the global community. The majority of the world’s population is coming to see the US as a dangerous, destructive, irrelevancy – the very definition of hypocrisy.
The White House and Congress fiddle while Gaza burns and America sinks. It’s what happens when limited, blind ideologues, living in an echo chamber and slaves to oligarchs and the merchants of death in the arms industry, drag an empire to its end.
History, as we know, is often brutally unkind. Those lost in the hideous power plays of today’s “Masters of the Universe,” the thousands being murdered in Gaza, those millions murdered in Vietnam, in Yugoslavia, in Iraq, In Libya, In Afghanistan, in South and Central America, in Africa, those millions who were never allowed life by history’s current “exceptional” empire, do give rise to the Phoenix.
There is nothing forgivable in unspeakable horrors now ongoing in Gaza, nothing forgivable in the ongoing, unspeakable horrors committed by the US empire since the incomprehensible and totally unnecessary incineration of 175,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But history does move on.
The “American Century” is coming to a desperately needed end. Herein lies great hope. If humanity survives the dangerous and difficult transition – and this is a serious question given the current disfunction of the US Government and leadership – a much more cooperative, multipolar world lies ahead. America’s 4 percent of the global population can become a productive, supportive member of the world community. There has to be hope. Perhaps this can also be an “unintended consequence.”