The cracks are showing. The US empire is in decay. What will the world look like once it’s no longer able to bully everyone? What do we have to look forward to both inside and outside the imperial core?
The cracks are showing. The US empire is in decay. What will the world look like once it’s no longer able to bully everyone? What do we have to look forward to both inside and outside the imperial core?
This is solid geopolitical analysis.
The India blunder cannot be understated. This is one of the fastest growing large economies in the world and its struggles in the past half millennia are more a blip in history than the norm. This similarly applies to China and its century of humiliation.
Multiple US administrations were carefully and measurably courting India over the past several decades which Trump undid essentially overnight.
India has a very strong history of trust with Russia which dates back hundreds of years but more recently the USSR directly supported India when the US sent nuclear armed vessels into the Bay of Bengal in support of Pakistan during the '71 Indo Pak war (before either India or Pakistan had nukes). Portugal also tried to keep one of it’s Indian colonies (Goa) after the end of WW2 which India took by force. Western nations intended to collude through the UN to force India to give the territory back but the USSR vetoed the vote.
Blunders like this generally come from not knowing history and it feels like Western leaders both in Europe and the US are no longer knowledgeable.
A few months ago Kaja Kallas, the Vice-President of the European Commission said: "I was in ASEAN meeting, and Russia was addressing China, like: ‘Russia and China, we fought the Second World War, we won the Second World War, we won the Nazis…’ And I was like, ‘Okay, that is something new. If you know history, then it raises a lot of question marks in your head… but nowadays, people don’t really read and remember history that much.’
Completely diminishing the obvious sacrifice of both countries, having been the two countries with that suffered the most casualities (25 million in the USSR and 20 million in China).
If these are the top minds in the West then we are absolutely cooked.
You’re absolutely on point about Ukraine and the Istanbul process also. One can only imagine how many peace processes have been undermined by the idea of the West being an ally and the might of the West being a reason not to compromise.
European attempts to freeze Russian assets in Euroclear and use them towards Ukrainian military efforts also seems like an act of desperation and it’s no surprise that Belgium has essentially said they will not comply unless other European powers also take on the liability involved.
At the very least Zelensky has said today that they are no longer going to pursue NATO membership which is a step towards reality based geopolitics.
Thank you very much and I also completely agree with your analysis. The ignorance of history on display is truly frightening.
I didn’t know the Ukrainians were finally willing to concede on the NATO question. As you say, a victory for sanity and realism.