• ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
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    4 days ago

    What it comes down to is that the US power is becoming depleted, and they’re going to have to husband their resources. This is what they’re really talking about when they acknowledge multipolarity. It’s not that the US is going to accept a world with other countries being equals, it’s that they have to cut their losses in Europe to try and take on China while they think they can still do it.

    • redline@lemmygrad.ml
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      4 days ago

      My bet is that the opportunity cost for imposing new and meaningful constraints on China is already too high and this has begun to clarify for US elites - basically the Asia pivot is sunk cost in the form it was conceived of during the Obama admin, as full spectrum dominance is no longer a realistic goal at any price.

      Why then cut Europe loose by allowing NATO to fall apart if you can strip them for parts in the medium term using that tried and tested trojan horse?

      Therefore, if we suppose China will remain on the board in its present form, the maintenance of a heavy handed material and ideological infrastructure to prevent Europe from economically pivoting to China, particularly once the US ramps up cannibalisation of alliance members, would appear to be a necessity. This is one lesson from the last few months for me.

      As an ideological project NATO works amazingly, even Europeans populations are still bought in. It’s like the final American postwar power projection tool that is functioning just as it was intended to in 1949.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
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        4 days ago

        I agree that in practical terms it’s obviously impossible for the US to contain China at this point. The whole tariffs fiasco made that crystal clear. However, it’s also clear that the policy the US pursues is rarely rooted in reality. There’s a belief in US that they can contain China and they will continue pour resources trying to achieve a goal that’s not achievable the same way they’re still pouring resources into a lost proxy war in Ukraine.

        Meanwhile, I don’t think pulling out of NATO is in any way at odds with stripping Europe for parts. As I noted earlier, Europe will still be dependent on the US military industry, and break up of NATO is likely to spur panic buying which will give an immediate boost to US war industry. I also expect the US to ramp up attacks on the EU because it will be easier to strip Europe for parts once it’s atomized.

        NATO could only work as a project when the West was the dominant economic bloc in the world. Now that BRICS is becoming a bigger economy, the west finds itself in a disarray and the US being the biggest fish is now starting to cannibalize its vassals to keep its own economy afloat.