United States Supremacy by Any Other Name by Alastair Crooke!
(2021-11-15 at 22:45:09 )

United States Supremacy by Any Other Name by Alastair Crooke!

The world balance has changed qualitatively, and not just quantitatively, Alastair Crooke writes.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum two weeks ago, General Milley conceded that "Americas century" is over - a long overdue acknowledgement, most might venture. Yet, belated or not, his saying it nonetheless seemed to signal an important strategic shift: "We are entering into a tri-polar - world with the United States, Russia and China being all great powers. [And] just by introducing three versus two you get increased complexity", General Milley said.

More recently, in a CNN interview Jake Sullivan, President Bidens Security Adviser, said that it had been a mistake to try to change China: "America is not seeking to "contain" China: it is not a new Cold War". Mr. Sullivans remarks come a week after President Biden said the United States was not seeking "physical conflict" with China, despite rising tensions - "this is competition", President Biden said.

This indeed seemed to signal something important. But is it, though? This use of the word "competition" is a tad curious as terminology, and requires a little unpacking.

CNN interviewer, Fareed Zakaria, asked Mr. Sullivan: So what is it, after all your "tough talk", that you have been able to agree with China; what has been negotiated? One might imagine a response outlining how best President Biden thinks to manage these competing interests in a complex tri-polar world. Well, that was not Mr. Sullivans retort. "Wrong metric", he said flatly: Do not ask about bilateral agreements - ask about what else we have secured.

The right way to think about this, Mr. Sullivan said, is: "Have we set the terms of an effective competition where the United States is in a position to defend its values and advance its interests, not just in the Indo-Pacific, but around the world. In terms of our allies around the world, the United States and Europe are aligned around trade and technology issues to ensure that China cannot "abuse our markets"; and then on the Indo-Pacific front, we have advanced so that we can hold China accountable for its actions."

"We want to create the circumstance in which two major powers will operate in an international system for the foreseeable future - and we want the terms of that system to be favourable to United States of American interests and values: It is rather, a favourable disposition in which the United States and its allies can shape the international rules of the road on the sorts of issues that are fundamentally going to matter to the people of our country [America] and to the people everywhere", he added.

The objective of the Joe Biden administration was not to seek any political transformation in China, Mr. Sullivan pointed out, but to shape the international order to favour its interests, and of other like-minded democracies: "We want the terms of that coexistence in the international system to be favourable to American interests and values. To be set up so that the rules of the road reflect an open, fair, free Indo-Pacific region; an open, fair, free international economic system and where basic values and norms that are enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights are respected in international institutions", he said. "This will be a competition as we go forward".

Mr. Sullivan is proposing very starkly a rules based global order - "international rules of the road" - that would be crafted around one central strategic interest (that of America), with little regard to consequences that may result for others. That "open, fair, free international system" is simply code for the western financialised neo-liberal system to go global. Josh Rogin wrote as much this week: "American-led internationalism, despite its flaws and missteps, remains the last, best hope for humanity."

And just to be clear, when we hear of an open, free economic system favourable to American interests, it is not the "interests of the 99%" that are being enshrined in the system, it is those of the 1% financial class, demanding the right to move their cash and credit anywhere, any time, without restriction.

Mr. Sullivans reference to Human Rights mirrors the "art" of the EU, where the doctrine of the primacy of European Law has served as a convenient device to extend the Unions central authority without rewriting the Treaties - or in this analogous case, for the United States extending its authority, and to proceed, without having to make bi-lateral agreements with China (or Russia), or anybody else. Mr. Sullivan was very clear on this point: Negotiated agreements with China were the wrong "metric" by which to judge Americas policy success.

Initially, nobody in Europe bothered much when a general supremacy of EU values and law was "discovered" by the European Court to be hiding within the EU treaties, (though to the naked eye, they were not so discernible). The muted reaction however, owed much to the fact that the jurisdiction of the EU at that time, was still rather narrow.

Later, the gentle, incremental upward transfer of national sovereignty to a centralised strategic interest (Brussels), became the principal engine for what came to be called "integration by law". Over time, a deep reading of the Treaties (for Euro-treaties, read Sullivans "enshrinement" of Universal Declaration of Human Rights) offered ever new reasons for subjecting democratic, national polities to a supra-national reading of a "higher interest".

So too, the universal declaration of Human Rights will likely offer Mr. Sullivan new reasons and opportunities to weaponise the text in order to bend allies and "adversaries" alike to the discipline of the central strategic interest (otherwise known as Washington,D.C.).

So, what had seemed to signal a significant shift of United States thinking - after a little unpacking - turns out to be nothing of the kind. Great Power competition it turns out, is nothing other than the globalist, United States-centred, rules based world order. The United States abstains from "transforming" (i.e. colour revolutionising) the CCP, because it can not; that tool still applies to lesser fish (i.e. Nicaragua).

On the one hand, we have seen the consequences to this centralised "rules" approach - whether practiced from Brussels or Washington,D.C.: a sort of soporific torpor ensues. All energy is directed to keeping the creaking system aloft (whether the EUs, or the American "rules of the road"), rather than finding real solutions. Cleavages open, that cannot be politically contained; resentments bubble away; crises are managed, not resolved; time is played for; reform is incremental and then, suddenly, unilateral; and, in the end, stasis reigns. It is called Merkelism in Europe (after the German Chancellor).

After the uneventful G20 summit in Rome, and COP26 in Glasgow, it looks like we are beginning to see the Merkelization of the world, as well. The sense that remains is one of a mechanism (two really if we include the EU), that makes convincing whirring and grinding sounds of fly-wheels spinning, and raises expectations of some result to pop down the final shute, yet little or nothing does - bar an ever deepening democratic deficit, as decisions formerly the realm of parliaments are transferred to a supra-national technocracy.

On the other hand, bad as this is (given the economic crises facing us), its greater "sin" (as articulated by Mr. Sullivan) is his demand for global "rules", whose scaffold is simply "the interests and values of the United States and its allies and partners". Mr. Sullivan says that the United States no longer seeks to transform Chinas system (that is good), but insists that China operate within an "order" built around United States interests and values - tout court. And, as Mr. Sullivan indicated, United States diplomatic effort is to be directed at coercing Chinese compliance to this system. Nowhere are the costs to allies mentioned, who would have to forego their relations with China or Russia, in order to please President Biden.

The bigger "sin", quite simply, is that the time for such haughty ambitions has passed. The world balance has changed qualitatively, and not just quantitatively. Both China and Russia - the other two components to General Milleys tri-partite world - have said it plainly enough: They refuse lectures by the West.

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