Moon of Alabama — Trump Dumps Pretension Of Altruism From U.S. Foreign Policy

For decades the U.S. foreign policy elite and its presidents played the farce of an altruistic United States that acts for the global good and in the interest of humanity.
That was always a lie. Wherever one takes a deeper look the U.S. acted solely in its (perceived) self interests. But the rhetoric helped to drag others along. Tributary governments could pretend they worked for the "universal good" when they in fact just followed orders from Washington DC. U.S. pressure was applied behind the curtain - through bribes, threats of revealing private secrets or, if necessary, via well managed "democratic" coups.

Those times are over. Thanks to the honesty of the Trump administration the foremost positions of hard U.S interests and deadly threats are now openly declared fundamentals of U.S. foreign policy.

The neo-conservative chaperone in the White House, National Security Advisor General McMaster, and the Goldman Sachs veto holder in the White House, economic advisor Gary Cohn, penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that reveals the new true face of the U.S. empire:

The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a “global community” but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage. We bring to this forum unmatched military, political, economic, cultural and moral strength. Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it.

Translation: "Power is with the strong. We feel strong. Screw you!"

At every stop in our journey, we delivered a clear message to our friends and partners: Where our interests align, we are open to working together to solve problems and explore opportunities. We let adversaries know that we will not only take their measure, deter conflict through strength, and defend our interests and values, but also look for areas of common interest that allow us to work together. In short, those societies that share our interests will find no friend more steadfast than the United States. Those that choose to challenge our interests will encounter the firmest resolve.

From now on the U.S. will only engage in selective, temporary friendships. "Where our interests align", and only there, will the U.S. be friendly because it obviously serves U.S. interests. Wherever a country deviates from that, even partially, it will "encounter the firmest resolve." That is as clear a threat as it can be.

I would not call this a threat. Not only it is finally telling the truth instead of larding it with BS. But it is also straight up Realpolitik that could have been penned by Otto von Bismarck, or Henry Kissinger. Oh, wait. Isn't Kissinger a key Trump advisor?

The McMaster/Cohn op-ed ends with this:

America First signals the restoration of American leadership and our government’s traditional role overseas—to use the diplomatic, economic and military resources of the U.S. to enhance American security, promote American prosperity, and extend American influence around the world.

Cue: USA! USA! USA!

Moon of Alabama
Trump Dumps Pretension Of Altruism From U.S. Foreign Policy

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Gilbert Doctorow — Letter from India: Local and global speculation about Henry Kissinger

While these two posts are not must-reads, they are important for understanding the subtext rather in order to avoid being taken in by flawed analysis and propaganda. Most Westerners don't understand the Russian world view, which is called Russkiy mir (Русский мир) in Russia. Failure to get this difference in understanding, based on cultural bias, results in the US foreign policy establishment, the US government, and US media in taking a confrontational attitude toward Russia that is based more on imagination than reality.

And this lack of understanding of other cultures doesn't apply only to Russia. Americans generally project themselves on the world and wonder why their analysis doesn't work out as planned, as in Iraqis greeting their liberators with flowers, instituting a Western-style democracy and everyone living happily ever after. Even the American cultural myth of falling in love, marrying a person of one's own choice and "living happily ever after" is fiction instead of reality, judging from divorce statistics and domestic violence.

The first post is a backgrounder on history, international relations, Henry Kissinger and the Realist School (Realpolitik) by an expert and scholar in foreign affairs. Detailed.

The second is a backgrounder on Russia and Russkiy mir (Русский мир) by the Saker, who is from a White Russian emigre family. Detailed.

Une parole franche
Letter from India: Local and global speculation about Henry Kissinger
Gilbert Doctorow | European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd.

The Vineyard of the Saker
Could there be a grain of truth in the Ukrainian propaganda? (repost with new introduction)
The Saker

John J. Mearsheimer — Donald Trump Should Embrace a Realist Foreign Policy

There are many reasons to be deeply worried about a Donald Trump presidency. But if he makes the right choices, he could fundamentally alter U.S. foreign policy for the better.

Trump campaigned against America’s powerful foreign policy community—what one of President Obama’s advisors derisively labeled “the Blob.” Its members include prominent Democrats and Republicans with similar views on foreign policy. He accused them of producing “one foreign policy disaster after another,” and promised to “develop a new foreign policy direction for our country.” This was precisely the message many voters wanted to hear, and the president-elect now has the opportunity to change how the United States deploys its power around the world....

The National Interest
Donald Trump Should Embrace a Realist Foreign Policy

John J. Mearsheimer | R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago

Katharina Pistor — The Problem With a Small Europe

Prof. Pistor points out that the fundamental issues are political rather than economic, and that Europe needs to face up to this democratically and decide on a direction.

The problem is that European electorates are not in favor of European federation, and  economic union was pushed by eurocrats to force subsequent political union where it could not achieved popularly.

Project Syndicate

The Problem With a Small Europe
Katharina Pistor | Professor of Law at Columbia Law School

Things ot be aware of: Noopolitik

In political science Noopolitik from the Greek Noos (knowledge) and German Politik (politics) is the network-based geopolitics of knowledge. The term was invented by defense experts John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt in a seminal RAND corporation study of 1999 and often appears in connection with that of smart power.

Noopolitics is an informational strategy of manipulating international processes through the forming in general public by means of mass media of positive or negative attitude to external or internal policy of a state of block of states to create a positive or negative image of ideas and promulgated moral values...

While the term initially appeared in association with the concept of the US Revolution in Military Affairs, Noopolitik has also come to describe an interest in theKnowledge Economy and in particular innovation and R&D to leverage growth and political reach in international relations. Thus Noopolitik may be defined as the use of innovation and knowledge to leverage political intercourses by other means at the international level. Such "knowledge race" may be either a means of asserting political independence or of generating a sudden gap in the geopolitical balance of power.... 

Professor Li Xiguang of Tsinghua University described the stakes of Smart power for the People's Republic of China in a 2010 article on Noopolitik in the Global Times 

Soft power is the power of making people love you. Hard power is the ability to making people fear you. Over the last 500 years, all the world powers gained their hegemony through hard power, but the US has gained its hegemony through combining hard power and soft power, both striking at and assimilating its opponents.

The US has built its soft power by making its values and political system, such as the US interpretation and definition of democracy, freedom and human rights, into supposedly universal values.

Innovation war.

Emphasizing China’s deeply-rooted desire for technological independence, Segal refers to the PRC’s efforts as an “Innovation Wall,” which is the willingness to innovate as independently as possible from the rest of the world to simply and systematically leap ahead of any other country. Needless to say, the scope of the rising fog of war in world economic and R&D competition is particularly daunting for the Euro-Atlantic community. The Chinese phrase for national innovation zizhu chuangxin was notably coined in a 2006 state report titled “Guidelines on National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Science and Technology Development.” If China decides to foster an innovation of its own, and the ideas were published in Mandarin language journals it would provide a barrier against other linguistic communities, and a thicker fog of war might rise in knowledge-based economic warfare.

Noopolitik
Wikipedia

Bill Totten — How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

Zbigniew Brzezinski and the CFR Put War Plans in a 1997 Book. It is “A Blueprint for World Dictatorship”, says a former German Defense and NATO Official who warned of global domination in 1984, in an exclusive interview with From The Wilderness by Michael C. Ruppert

Totten's Weblog
How Stupid Do They Think We Are?
Bill Totten

See also The Great Game,  Geostrategy,  Halford MacKinder, and  The Geographical Pivot of History.

It's impossible to understand world events without understanding the essentials of this. There is method to the apparent madness.

Paul Jay interviews Gar Alperovitz: "Understanding the Imperialist System Changed My Life"

Paul Jay interviews Gar Alperovitz telling the story of his radicalization.

Truthout
Gar Alperovitz: "Understanding the Imperialist System Changed My Life"

Paul Jay, The Real News Network | Video Interview with Gar Alperovitz | Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland and the cofounder of the Democracy Collaborative. He's also served as a legislative director in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and as a special assistant in the Department of State.

John Pilger — Kissinger and Chile: In an Age of Vigilantes, There Is Cause for Optimism

The most important anniversary of the year was the 40th anniversary of September 11, 1973 - the crushing of the democratic government of Chile by Gen. Augusto Pinochet and Henry Kissinger, then US secretary of state. The National Security Archive in Washington has posted new documents that reveal much about Kissinger's role in an atrocity that cost thousands of lives.

In declassified tapes, Kissinger is heard planning with President Richard Nixon the overthrow of President Salvador Allende. They sound like Mafiosi thugs. Kissinger warns that the "model effect" of Allende's reformist democracy "can be insidious." He tells CIA director Richard Helms, "We will not let Chile go down the drain," to which Helms replies, "I am with you." With the slaughter under way, Kissinger dismisses a warning by his senior officials of the scale of the repression. Secretly, he tells Pinochet, "You did a great service to the West."...

Understanding Kissinger's criminality is vital when trying to fathom what the US calls its "foreign policy." Kissinger remains an influential voice in Washington, admired and consulted by Barack Obama. When Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain commit crimes with US collusion and weapons, their impunity and Obama's hypocrisy are pure Kissinger. Syria must not have chemical weapons, but Israel can have them and use them. Iran must not have a nuclear program, but Israel can have more nuclear weapons than Britain. This is known as "realism" or realpolitik by Anglo-American academics and think-tanks that claim expertise in "counterterrorism" and "national security," which are Orwellian terms meaning the opposite.

In 2006, I interviewed Duane "Dewey" Clarridge, who ran the CIA in Latin America in the 1980s. Here was a true "realist." Like Kissinger and Nixon on the tapes, he spoke his mind. He referred to Salvador Allende as "whatshisname in Chile" and said "he had to go because it was in our national interests." When I asked what gave him the right to overthrow governments, he said, "Like it or lump it, we'll do what we like. So just get used to it, world." 

While Chile is recovering from the overthrow of Allende and the right wing is still in power, the rest of Latin America is veering left.

The world is no longer getting used to it. In a continent ravaged by those whom Nixon called "our bastards," Latin American governments have defied the likes of Clarridge and implemented much of Allende's dream of social democracy - which was Kissinger's fear. Today, most of Latin America is independent of US foreign policy and free of its vigilantism. Poverty has been cut almost by half; children live beyond the age of 5; the elderly learn to read and write. These remarkable advances are invariably reported in bad faith in the West and ignored by the "realists." That must never lessen their value as a source of optimism and inspiration for all of us. 

Truthout | Op-Ed

Kissinger and Chile: In an Age of Vigilantes, There Is Cause for Optimism
John Pilger

Remind me what the difference between neoliberalism at its worst, as displayed by Kissinger, and fascism is. One of Nixon's worst appointments and the most powerful and nefarious. When the history is written he will go down as the man that lost Latin America for the US.

Ethan Freedman — When a Moral Duty to Halt Atrocities Runs into Realpolitik

Against the backdrop of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, a panel of United States government officials and experts called for stronger methods to prevent modern-day genocides and mass atrocities, particularly in the case of Syria. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the highest-ranking government official at the panel Tuesday, held in cooperation with the Council on Foreign Relations and CNN, addressed the mass killings of Syrian citizens by President Bashar al-Assad. She defended the administration’s decision not to directly intervene in Syria by force, but said that nevertheless, the administration is taking steps to address the situation there.

“We are increasing our efforts to assist the opposition,” she said about the Syrian rebels. “We know that the sooner it ends, the less violence there will be, and the less chance there is for extremism to take hold.”

In a poll of 1,000 U.S. citizens released Tuesday, conducted by the polling firm Penn Schoen Berland in conjunction with the panel, 78 percent of those surveyed support the U.S. taking military action to stop genocide or mass atrocities.

Read it at IPS | Inter Press Service
When a Moral Duty to Halt Atrocities Runs into Realpolitik
By Ethan Freedman