美国全球霸权的剖析
2022-03-18 07:23阅读：
An Anatomy of America's Global Hegemony: What Led to Its
Incredible Success and What Will Cause Its Unavoidable
Decline
Claudio Gallo
The Pilgrims Fathers' City upon a Hill loved by Reagan, the image
of American exceptionalism is, in reality, The Mint upon the
Hill.
The study is edited by retired Italian lieutenant general Fabio
Mini, Commander of the NATO-led KFOR in Kosovo from 2002 to 2003.
Mini also introduced in Italy “Unrestricted Warfare”, his Italian
foreword is now translated in the last Chinese edition. Qiao’s new
work is a study of the American superpower. It explains its
incredible success and the reasons for its unavoidable decline.
According to Qiao, the United States has ove
rcome the colonialist imperial logic of the 19th century British
Empire by adopting a revolutionary system of economic domination,
which has reached its peak with the end of Bretton Woods agreements
in 1971. The power of the dollar as a universal currency supports
the first financial empire in history. The Pilgrims Fathers’ City
upon a Hill loved by Reagan, the image of American exceptionalism
is, in reality, The Mint upon the Hill. With this “colonial
financial economy”, American wealth is paid for by the rest of the
world. Qiao writes that Pentagon’s “endless wars” are designed to
ensure “that not only do dollars flow smoothly out of the country
but also that capital moving around the world returns to the United
States”. We have asked general Mini to introduce Qiao’s conception
of the U.S. Empire and its decline.
During a video conference in early December, Chinese President Xi
and Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the need “of
accelerating efforts to form an independent financial
infrastructure for servicing trading operations between Russia and
China”. Do you think this is the beginning of the end of the dollar
system?
I don’t rule it out. Considering that Qiao Liang wrote the book in
2015, he must be credited with great foresight and political
influence. The two leaders are concretely interested in ending the
hegemony of the dollar. As Qiao says, the dollar’s waning may mark
the beginning of the end of U.S. economic and geopolitical
hegemony. However, this does not mean that the attempt will
succeed. The Americans could threaten or implement retaliation, not
necessarily only commercially. For now, the common intention of
Putin and Xi is to bypass the dollar’s brokerage in their bilateral
trade only. But China and Russia rely heavily on exports, and their
currencies credibility is not so strong. Despite U.S. threats and
penalties imposed on its commerce, China is not in a hurry. It aims
to pursue an international agreement that recognises at least two
other currencies as reference for trade in addition to the dollar:
euro and yuan. Russia is in a different situation: it realises that
the U.S. counters any attempt to safeguard its sovereignty and
regional interests. Therefore, it suffers a triple penalty: two in
the economic field and one in the political field. The export
resources are depleted in quantity and price (due to demand
contraction). Its imports are penalised by prices (increasing due
to the lower supply) and payments in dollars. The third, and most
important, is the political penalty: submitting to external
blackmail causes a loss of credibility and influence. Russia has
had to bite the U.S.-NATO bullet in continental Europe for years
now. Detachment from the dollar has become a question of political
survival for Moscow. However, Russia knows that this measure is
necessary but not sufficient. The country faces a U.S.-NATO
offensive made of provocations, erosion of territories, border
destabilisation and support to internal subversion that requires to
be managed on the level of security and military power. While China
believes it has time to act on the economic and financial level,
Russia must demonstrate that it can oppose serious provocations
also militarily. The different Russian and Chinese attitudes find a
concordance of territorial, economic and geopolitical interests in
Central Asia, the energy sector and military-industrial
cooperation. The EU might be the balancing power in this situation,
even for Russia and China. The euro could become the new equivalent
currency in the world. But currently, the Union’s internal
political weakness, its subservience to the Americans and the
permanent delegation of its security to NATO are making this
scenario impossible.
The return of industries moved abroad, first evoked by President
Obama, appears structurally impossible. Qiao sees it as another
aspect of American decay. Even if U.S. experiences new recoveries,
they will be “jobless”. Technological innovation and finance have
reached “their energetic limit”; there will only be a decline from
now on. Is it a realistic judgment?
It seems reasonable to me, especially for the period in which it
was formulated. Today it would perhaps be revisited but not
completely rejected. The U.S. is experiencing one crisis after
another, yet it is not holding back ambition or adventurism.
Indeed, much of manufacturing is lost forever, but IT and
technology dominance is still strong, and the financial dominance
is huge. The U.S. trade deficit has two aspects: it favours the
Chinese and, at the same time, induces Washington to contain China.
The manufacturing deficit can be balanced by exports of
technologies and the energy sector. Since the American stranglehold
on Russia and its resources began, the United States has multiplied
gas exports to Europe. The observation that any economic recovery
will be “jobless” is correct to those who think of work and
employment as tools for growth and prosperity. Almost the entire
world agrees. But the U.S. is an exception in this as well. They
have long abandoned the idea of giving work to increase production
and have never said that the wealth should be better distributed.
On the contrary, the concentration of wealth in a few hands
facilitates its control and use. They have long replaced employment
benefits with those of exploitation and speculation. Work is now a
social safety net, just like the layoff funds. Few people’s wealth
and success are illusorily experienced as collective goods that the
whole country should be proud of.
One of the most surprising thesis in the book is that Washington is
more interested in destroying the euro’s Europe than China. From
the NATO war on Yugoslavia in the aftermath of the birth of the
European currency in 1991 to today’s confrontation with Moscow in
Ukraine, Washington is simultaneously pursuing the goal of
encircling Russia and damaging the EU with the help of the
Europeans themselves. The prospect of an economic relationship
between Russia and Europe, naturally favoured by geopolitics, is
thus destroyed. Is this a conspiracy theory?
No, it is a theorem proven by the facts. In the wake of Trump’s
tariffs offensive against Europe, some European analysts claimed
that the Union was an Americans’ idea. Hence the U.S. cannot want
its destruction. It is a historical falsehood and a clumsy attempt
to reassure Europeans when doubts are growing about the loyalty of
their bigger ally. The idea of supporting the formation of a kind
of European Union came to the Americans when they decided to launch
the Marshall Plan’s aid program after WWII. It was a purpose of
convenience: they needed a united counterpart to manage the aid.
Furthermore, the fear that the USSR would take control of Europe
was the reason for the initial support for the European Union.
Washington made sure to stop any European initiative that wasn’t to
its benefit. The contrast remained all along with the Cold War but
under the radar. It was clear when the NATO blockade transformed
the possible Soviet threat of nuclear retaliation against the U.S.
in a nuclear and conventional war in Europe. After the implosion of
the USSR, the contrast increased when NATO assumed the double task
of expanding to the East and preventing Europe from acquiring an
autonomous defence capability. NATO’s ploy was the Partnership for
Peace program (PFP), which offered non-NATO countries the
possibility of military cooperation. For a few years, Russia, an
observer inside NATO, followed the program with suspicion.
Countries formerly part of the Warsaw Pact entered into the
Alliance, while others were offered to be part of the EU as a first
step towards admission. On the other side of the border, Moscow
found new Europeans that opposed Russia and strictly followed the
anti-Russian U.S. directives even to the detriment of the rest of
the Union. For the last ten years, the U.S. has prevented any
European autonomy. Above all, they averted the possibility that the
euro could challenge the dollar. For this reason, America will not
miss any opportunity to force Europe to cut both political and
economic relations with Moscow and Beijing. Such manoeuvres are
forcing Russia and China to increase their military power to shift
the confrontation to the geopolitical and strategic level, where
military deterrence may contain the economic threat.
Italy has a strong dependence on Washington and hosts U.S. atomic
weapons on its territory. Now an American fund wants to buy TIM’s
network, the most important telecommunications company in the
country. It seems an excellent example of the looting of the family
jewels that, according to Qiao, the Dollar’s Empire cyclically
carries out at the expense of the rest of the world. Is it
so?
He is right in saying that the dollar sucks up the wealth produced
by people’s sweat in exchange for a piece of bread. He argues that
the dollar does not fluctuate only concerning the economic or
geopolitical situation but follows a cyclical pattern that affects
the economy and geopolitics. This Qiao’s brilliant insight is now a
phenomenon verified by Japanese and Chinese researchers. These
studies have found that the dollar index varies downward for
thirty-two months and upward for an equivalent period. The first
interval begins with large amounts of money entering the financial
market. It causes interest rates to fall, greater access to credit
and increased productivity by those in the world who have taken
advantage of the liquidity. So the wealth increases, and there are
significant “economic booms”. But this wealth cannot be left in the
hands of the beneficiaries. So it begins the interval in which the
dollar must return to the U.S. The monetary flow decreases,
interest rates increase, American securities become profitable, and
new investments flow to U.S. companies. The “dollar cycle” is
completed in 65 months, during which the U.S. profits both from the
“roller coaster” imposed on global finance and from speculation
based on the return of capital. But we should have no illusions,
the appropriation of other people’s wealth is not an exclusive
feature of the American dollar. Large Chinese corporations are
following closely behind or perhaps have already surpassed U.S.
multinationals in hoarding the resources and labour of others. But,
even accepting Qiao Liang’s proposal to establish a global regime
based on three reference currencies: dollar, euro and yuan, the
economic pillage would not be reduced or eliminated. So the real
nature of the problem is not the currency but who guarantees its
convertibility and stability. According to Qiao Liang and many
others, providing these guarantees for the dollar is a country that
lives beyond its capabilities, does not allow competition,
exercises political absolutism. To maintain its lifestyle, the U.S.
has no qualms in prevaricating, preventing the development of
others, waging war against everyone, enemies and friends, allies
and opponents. Qiao identifies in the dollar’s hegemony the key to
dismantling this power with the means of finance and the potential
of the Internet. The Chinese general is stunned by how the U.S.
exercises its global hegemony: convincing the world that the
threatening and warmongering countries are Russia and China and not
them.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/01/18/anatomy-of-america-global-hegemony-what-led-its-incredible-success-and-what-will-cause-its-unavoidable-decline/
