Justin Podur — Why It’s So Hard for Most Countries to be Economically Independent from the West

The structures of the global economy present challenges to any country or political party that wants to try to break out of U.S. hegemony. Even for countries as big and with as much potential as Brazil or Egypt, countries that have experienced waves of relative independence, the inertia of these economic structures helps send them back into old patterns of extraction and debt. In this moment of right-wing resurgence it is hard to imagine political movements arising with plans to push off the weight of the economic past. But that weight cannot be ignored.

Colonialism and path dependence. I would say that this is one of a number of factors. Whether they can be reduced to a single factor or even a few factors remains to be seen. However, this seems to be one of the key factors.

The post focuses on Brazil.

Naked Capitalism
Why It’s So Hard for Most Countries to be Economically Independent from the West

Justin Podur | Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, Canada

Matias Vernengo — Middle Income Trap or the Return of US Hegemony

Short essay in Spanish for the special (40 year anniversary of the journal Coyuntura y Desarrollo, published by the Fundación de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo, FIDE). It is essentially a critique of the concept of middle-income trap and the idea of how the demographic transitions (discussed herebefore) affect the process of development. It suggests that the deindustrialization of the Latin American periphery results as much from the decisions in the hegemonic country to open up China, as from the decisions of the local elites to adopt neoliberal policies to punish its labor class. It is also noted that the deindustrialization of the central countries (particularly the US) should be taken with a certain degree of skepticism (see this old post), since manufacturing output went up (even if manufacturing employment has gone down, at least since the entry of China in the WTO), and the US maintains a significant leadership in key industrial sectors (let alone the military; see also this more recent post).

Naked Keynesianism
Middle Income Trap or the Return of US Hegemony
Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University

Stanislav Tkachenko — G20: A Transition to Bipolarity?

Although the G20 still retains its potential to support the global economic stability, there is an impression that its mission is coming to an end. If this trend is not reversed, then, a summit or two from now, we might see the return of trade wars and competitive devaluations of national currencies. In that case, the current G20 format, built around the US leadership and hegemonic in nature, will not work at all. The nature of the G20 is that of an international forum, not an international intergovernmental organization.;;;

Valdai
G20: A Transition to Bipolarity?

Stanislav Tkachenko, Visiting Professor at the Research Center for the Economies and Politics of Transitional Countries, Liaoning University

Alex Ward — John Bolton just gave an “Axis of Evil” speech about Latin America

Socialism is "tyranny," you see.

The US has been after regime change in Cuba —unsuccessfully— since the Bay of Pigs invasion. But it has done its best to ruin the economy. Because "socialism is tyranny."

So now we an "axis of evil" on Latin America in addition to the Bush era axis of evil — Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — and Russia and China named as chief adversaries.

Anyone else hear the sound of war drums beating getting louder?

VOX
John Bolton just gave an “Axis of Evil” speech about Latin America

Alex Ward

See also

“The recent elections of like-minded leaders in key countries, including Ivan Duque in Colombia, and last weekend Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, are positive signs for the future of the region, and demonstrate a growing regional commitment to free-market principles, and open, transparent, and accountable governance,” Bolton said in his speech at Miami-Dade College.

He did not address widespread concerns about Bolsonaro’s stated admiration for Brazil’s 21-year military dictatorship and its use of torture, and portrayed repression in Latin America as an exclusively communist phenomenon.

“[T]oday, in this hemisphere, we are also confronted once again with the destructive forces of oppression, socialism and totalitarianism” Bolton said.

“Under this administration, we will no longer appease dictators and despots near our shores in this hemisphere. We will not reward firing squads, torturers, and murderers … The troika of tyranny in this hemisphere – Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua – has finally met its match.”

The reality is that the "dictators" Bolton mentions were not socialist leaders but US puppets like Pinochet in Chile and Samoza in Nicaragua.  It was the Sandinistas led by Ortega, the sitting president of Nicaragua, whom Bolton wants to remove, that ousted the repressive Samoza regime.

The Guardian
Bolton praises Bolsonaro while declaring ‘troika of tyranny’ in Latin America

Julian Borger

See also

Bolton also announced plans to sanction Cuba and Nicaragua, which, together with Venezuela, he dubbed the "Troika of Tyranny."

"This triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua is the cause of immense human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere," he said. "Under President Trump, the United States is taking direct action against all three regimes to defend the rule of law, liberty, and basic human decency in our region."

Last week, a U.S. Treasury official said the United States should publicize Turkey's involvement in the Venezuela gold industry. Marshall Billingslea, assistant secretary for terrorist financing at Treasury, said the Turkish government skirted international sanctions by purchasing tons of Venezuelan gold in recent months.

The US policy under acting–president John Bolton is engaging in economic warfare with any nation that refuses to submit to the American Empire. "America First" acquires a necon meaning. What happened to the elected president who campaigned on reducing foreign entanglement.

I am puzzled. How did liberal interventionism in the mode of HRC, whom the American people rejected, replace the America First of DJT? And how did the national security adviser become acting–POTUS?

UPI
U.S. sanctions Venezuela's gold exports
Danielle Haynes

See also

The US gets the finger again. 189 to 2 (US and Israel), with 2 abstaining (Ukraine and Moldova). The US couldn't even get Ukraine aboard. Talk about sending a message.

The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted its 27th annual resolution calling for an end to the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba after a failed bid by Washington to amend the text to push Cuba to improve its human rights record.

The U.N. vote can carry political weight, but only the U.S. Congress can lift the more than 50-year-old embargo. The United States and Israel voted against the resolution, 189 countries voted in favor and Ukraine and Moldova did not vote.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the General Assembly that the resolution was an opportunity for countries “to feel they can poke the United States in the eye.”…

The United States voted against the U.N. resolution last year along with its ally Israel. The General Assembly’s remaining 191 members voted in favor....

Has the US lost all its soft power and now sees its hard power dwindling, too?

One America
U.N. urges end to U.S. embargo on Cuba, U.S. raises rights concerns

Michelle Nichols

SouthFront — US Boosts Defense Spending – To What End?

While [Donald Trump] campaigned on, for example, a “trillion-dollar investment in infrastructure,” the chances of such a program being passed by Congress are between slim and none. So offering a de-facto trillion-dollar increase in defense spending is the next best thing, as it may well translate into enough jobs in key states to ensure a margin of victory in the 2020 election.

But there is also a deeper sense to this effort, as the US establishment seems to try to re-enact the 1980s. And for a good reason. It was quite literally the last decade of America’s greatness, the last decade in which the country elected a president by a landslide–Ronald Reagan in 1984–and the last decade in which it scored a genuine, unalloyed geopolitical triumph in the form of the collapse of USSR and the emergence of the US as the sole hegemonic power. Therefore it is no surprise that US decisionmakers want to use it as a blueprint for repeating the earlier success.

Indeed, if one looks at the origins of America’s 1980s triumph, it is easy to see similarities between the current policies and US policies of 1970s and 1980s. The prescription for success looks something like this: first, end unpopular costly quagmire wars, retrench, carry out domestic reforms liberalizing the economy, run up national debt through massive deficit spending, pump hundreds of billions of dollars of new spending into a revitalized all-volunteer force benefiting from a technological leap forward, and watch the geopolitical benefits practically reap themselves!
But it’s unlikely this feat can be repeated....

Unfortunately, there are few indications the US elites have accommodated themselves to the new, post-hegemonic, international balance of power, and the boost in military spending is a reflection of their efforts to recapture past glories. But it is unlikely they can reverse the process of US hegemonic decline. Indeed, this effort actually represents a still-heavier burden on the already weak US economy.

SouthFront
US Boosts Defense Spending – To What End?

J.Hawk, Daniel Deiss, Edwin Watson

Angela Poh and Ong Weichong — What Happens When America First Collides with the Chinese Dream?

China perceives the status quo as American hegemony that stands in the way of its Chinese Dream.

An irresistible force meeting an immovable object? Somethin's gotta give.

A major problem is that America and to a great extent it Anglo allies assumes that its view of liberalism is descriptive of the natural order and other views are therefore simply wrong. This is one of the foundations of a series of paradoxes of liberalism that lead liberals to think and act illiberally. 

China views the natural order completely differently based on its culture and historical development.

China is now strong enough to contest US hegemony, confident that the US cannot win a land war in Asia. Typically empires expand their reach beyond the limit at which they can sustain it. The US now at that limit and it's reach is contracting.

The National Interest
What Happens When America First Collides with the Chinese Dream?
Angela Poh, PhD Candidate at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, and Ong Weichong, assistant professor at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University

See also

A reader asked why neoconservatives push toward nuclear war when there can be no winners. If all die, what is the point?

The answer is that the neoconservatives believe that the US can win at minimum and perhaps zero damage. 

Their insane plan is as follows: Washington will ring Russia and China with anti-ballistic missile bases in order to provide a shield against a retaliatory strike from Russia and China. Moreover, these US anti-ABM bases also can deploy nuclear attack missiles unknown to Russia and China, thus reducing the warning time to five minutes, leaving Washington’s victims little or no time in which to make a decision.

The neoconservatives think that Washington’s first strike will so badly damage the Russian and Chinese retaliatory capabilities that both governments will surrender rather than launch a response. The Russian and Chinese leaderships would conclude that their diminished forces leave little chance that many of their ICBMs will be able to get past Washington’s ABM shield, leaving the US largely intact. A feeble retaliation by Russia and China would simply invite a second wave US nuclear attack that would obliterate Russian and Chinese cities, killing millions and leaving both countries in ruins.

In short, the American warmongers are betting that the Russian and Chinese leaderships would submit rather than risk total destruction.

There is no question that neoconservatives are sufficiently evil to launch a preemptive nuclear attack, but possibly the plan aims to put Russia and China into a situation in which their leaders conclude that the deck is stacked against them and, therefore, they must accept Washington’s hegemony.

To feel secure in its hegemony, Washington would have to order Russia and China to disarm.

This plan is full of risks. Miscalculations are a feature of war. It is reckless and irresponsible to risk the life of the planet for nothing more than Washington’s hegemony.

Whatever would lead anyone to conceive of such a thing? 

Game theory.

Paul Craig Roberts
Sauron Rules in Washington

May 5, 2017

Also

Zero Hedge
Russia Does Not Exclude Possibility Of War With NATO
Tyler Durden

It's fairly certain that the US, China and Russia are engaged in a feverish arms race to dominate in cyberwarfare, space warfare, electronic warfare, hypersonic weapons, and other high tech warfare, including robotics and drones, that mutually assure destruction.

Gareth Porter — How CIA and Allies Trapped Obama in the Syrian Arms Debacle

The title is a bit misleading. The buck stops at the Oval Office, and then President was too weak to be able to resist pressure and act in the best interests of the United States, not to mention in accordance with international law. The devil made me do it excuse don't pass the smell test. The blame rests on the president, and he should be tarred with it.

However, this backgrounder does illustrate the power of the US deep state in running US foreign and military policy, regardless of the president's lead. This reads like court intrigue in the age of monarchies.

The American Conservative
How CIA and Allies Trapped Obama in the Syrian Arms Debacle

And why it ultimately benefitted terrorists like Al Qaeda

Gareth Porter

RT — Tillerson says allies pleading with US to ‘improve Russia relations’ as Senate agrees new sanct

All of America’s allies and partners have been calling on Washington to improve its relations with Russia, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged after the US Senate reached a bipartisan deal to boost sanctions against Moscow.

“I have yet to have a bilateral, one-on-one, a poolside conversation with a single counterpart in any country: in Europe, Middle East, even South-East Asia, that has not said to me: please, address your relationship with Russia, it has to be improved,” Tillerson said on Tuesday during testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Foreign Operations.

Tillerson added that the countries urging the US to review its Russian policy “believe worsening this relationship will ultimately worsen theirsituation.”
He added: “People have been imploring me to engage and try to improve the situation, so, that was our approach anyway.”

How to lose allies. 

Even vassals have interests and will be willing to act on them if they perceive it in their overall interest, especially when they are bearing the burden and the US is only the one benefitting.

US hardline policy is classic overreach. Don't be surprised if there is a reaction against US global hegemony and unipolarism in international relations.

RT
Tillerson says allies pleading with US to ‘improve Russia relations’ as Senate agrees new sanctions

Mattis — Russia, China Challenging US Military Dominance

The nerve of them.

Mattis noted said these developments put the entire international order [read US hegemony] at risk.

"A return to great power competition, marked by a resurgent and more aggressive Russian Federation and a rising, more confident, and assertive China, places the international order under assault," he wrote.

The Defense Department has requested a $639 billion budget for next year.

Sputnik International
Mattis: Russia, China Challenging US Military Dominance

Fabius Maximus — The real reason for America’s hostility to China

Imperialism. That's how the Chinese see it anyway.

Fabius Maximus
The real reason for America’s hostility to China

See also

Reminiscent of the Aesop fable, The boy that cried wolf.

Hidden but important truths from the presidential debate

Russian Intel General: the CIA May Be Planning to Assassinate Putin — Andrey Afanasyev interviews Leonid Reshetnikov

We should have no illusions. Today’s United States of America is interested only in one thing – destroying Russia as a civilizational, geopolitical, military and political rival — as well as an economic rival, with its treasure trove of resources.

Russia Insider

Russian Intel General: the CIA May Be Planning to Assassinate Putin
Andrey Afanasyev interviews Leonid Reshetnikov, Director of an influential think tank, the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS), and a retired lieutenant general of Russia's foreign intelligence service

Gareth Porter — The War Against the Assad Regime Is Not a "Pipeline War"

If it's not a pipeline war, why is the US intervening in Syria? The US decision to support Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in their ill-conceived plan to overthrow the Assad regime was primarily a function of the primordial interest of the US permanent war state in its regional alliances. The three Sunni allies control US access to the key US military bases in the region, and the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department and the Obama White House were all concerned, above all, with protecting the existing arrangements for the US military posture in the region.

After all, those military bases are what allow the United States to play at the role of hegemonic power in the Middle East, despite the disasters that have accompanied that role. The degree to which the US determination to preserve its present military profile in the region is illustrated by the case of US-Qatar relations over that tiny monarchy's arming of extremist Sunni groups in Syria in 2012. The Obama administration was very unhappy with Qatar's choice of proxies in Syria, and the National Security Council discussed a proposal to pull a squadron of US fighter planes from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar as a way of putting pressure on the government over the issue, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.

But the US Central Command (CENTCOM), which had moved its headquarters to Al Udeid in 2003, argued that the base was critical to its operations in the region, and that it was about to renegotiate its agreement with Qatar over the use of it. The Pentagon supported CENTCOM's opposition to any move that would disturb relations with Qatar over the issue and vetoed any such pressure on Qatar. The administration ended up doing nothing about the issue, and in 2013, the US-Qatar Defense Cooperation Agreement originally reached in 2003 was renewed for another ten years.

The massive, direct and immediate power interests of the US war state -- not the determination to ensure that a pipeline would carry Qatar's natural gas to Europe -- drove the US policy of participation in the war against the Syrian regime. Only if activists focus on that reality will they be able to unite effectively to oppose not only the Syrian adventure but the war system itself.

The upshot? To preserve its hegemony, which depends on military control of the Middle East, Washington, that is, both the WH and the deep state, have agreed to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey's support of Al Qaeda and ISIS as proxies. Porter doesn't mention it, but Israel is so opposed to Syria and Iran that it is on board with the plan to use jihadi terrorists, too. Hey, it’s the snake pit, why not?

Truthout | News Analysis
The War Against the Assad Regime Is Not a "Pipeline War"
Gareth Porter

Thierry Meyssan — China is setting up the menu for Global Financial Order

During the first Annual Summit organized by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing, China has shown her intention to take over the global leadership in infrastructure investment. By the end of this year, AIIB would have more than 100 members, making it the first lending institution in multilateral loans in history, under the control of the most important emerging countries. Yet, it is expected that she makes the decision of dropping off the Dollar, as it is the only way to break away from US hegemony in international finance.

This is an especially bold move since it is taking on only US hegemony and Western neoliberal dominance, but also "the masters of the universe" that control global finance. Get ready for the fireworks. Some sparks have already begun to fly.

Voltaire Network
China is setting up the menu for Global Financial Order

Thierry Meyssan, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference

Michael Lind — Can America Share Its Superpower Status?

Forward looking.

The National Interest
Can America Share Its Superpower Status?

Michael Lind, fellow at New America, a contributing editor of the National Interest, and author of The American Way of Strategy.

Sputnik — Beijing Blasts ‘American Aggression,’ Calls for Russia-China ‘New World Order’

As the United States and Europe embark on an increasingly hawkish policy towards China, Beijing has moved to welcome the formation of an alliance with Russia to counter NATO.

Speaking at the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party last month, Xi Jinping delivered what Western analysts are calling an "incendiary speech" in which he called for a military union with Russia that would render NATO "powerless" and "put an end to the imperialist desires of the West."

The harsh statements come at a time when both Beijing and Moscow find themselves vulnerable to an increasingly hawkish US foreign policy that has resulted in a series of massive war games on both countries’ doorstep and the placement of missile shields in strategic quadrants to limit the ability of both Russia and China to defend themselves if conflict were ever to ensue.

"The world is on the verge of radical change," said the increasingly frustrated Chinese President. "We see how the European Union is gradually collapsing, as is the US economy – it is all over for the new world order."

Sputnik
Beijing Blasts ‘American Aggression,’ Calls for Russia-China ‘New World Order’

James W. Carden — Magical Thinking in US Foreign Policy

This generation of American “humanitarian” crusaders, as exemplified by the career of Ambassador [Samantha] Power, continually seeks to sacrifice stability on the altar of “democratic” idealism (even when that involves reversing democratic results and contributing to humanitarian suffering). Further, the problem that these efforts engender for U.S. national security interests are legion: war continues to rage in eastern Ukraine, Libya is completely destabilized, likewise Syria and Iraq.

Contrary to what Power would have us believe, the “democratization” crusade undermines, rather than strengthens U.S. national security. As the Greek statesman Pericles famously observed: “I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of our enemies’ designs.”

Liberal interventionist wing of US foreign/military policy and international relations.

Consortium News
Magical Thinking in US Foreign Policy

James W. Carden, contributing writer for The Nation and editor of The American Committee for East-West Accord’s eastwestaccord.com. He previously served as an advisor on Russia to the Special Representative for Global Inter-governmental Affairs at the US State Department.

Pepe Escobar — The Real Secret of the South China Sea

Historical backgrounder. Colonialism is at the bottom of it.

The South China Sea is and will continue to be the ultimate geopolitical flashpoint of the young 21st century – way ahead of the Middle East or Russia’s western borderlands. No less than the future of Asia – as well as the East-West balance of power – is at stake.

To understand the Big Picture, we need to go back to 1890 when Alfred Mahan, then president of the US Naval College, wrote the seminal The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783. Mahan’s central thesis is that the US should go global in search of new markets, and protect these new trade routes through a network of naval bases.…

Almost all the contested borderlands today are the result of Western powers drawing lines on maps in the colonial era and the attempt to maintain them in the neocolonial era under US hegemony as the American Empire. In the past this dynamic as almost always led to conflict and war.

And, yes, HRC has been deeply involved in shaping it.

In 2011 the US State Department was absolutely terrified with the planned Obama administration withdrawals from both Iraq and Afghanistan; what would happen to superpower projection? That ended in November 2011, when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coined the by now famous “pivot to Asia”.

“Six lines of action” were embedded in the “pivot”. Four of these Clinton nicked from a 2009 report by the Washington think tank CSIS; reinvigorating alliances; cultivating relationships with emerging powers; developing relationships with regional multilateral bodies; and working closely with South East Asian countries on economic issues. Clinton added two more: broad-based military presence in Asia, and the promotion of democracy and human rights.

It was clear from the start – and not only across the global South — that cutting across the rhetorical fog the “pivot” was code for a military offensive to contain China. Even more seriously, this was the geopolitical moment when a South East Asian dispute over maritime territory intersected with the across-the-globe confrontation between the hegemon and a “peer competitor”.

What Clinton meant by “engaging emerging powers” was, in her own words, “join us in shaping and participating in a rules-based regional and global order”. This is code for rules coined by the hegemon – as in the whole apparatus of the Washington consensus.…

Sputnik
The Real Secret of the South China Sea

Pepe Escobar

Steve LeVine — How China Is Building the Biggest Commercial-Military Empire in History

China breaks out and goes global.

Defense One
How China Is Building the Biggest Commercial-Military Empire in History
Steve LeVine | Quartz’s Washington correspondent. LeVine founded and ran The Oil and the Glory, a blog on energy and geopolitics at Foreign Policy magazine
ht Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism

Alan Nasser — Hillary’s Agenda Here and Abroad Intertwined: “Full Spectrum Dominance” Around the Globe, A Swelling Precariat at Home

Nails it. Must read in its entirety. 'Nuff said.

Counterpunch
Hillary’s Agenda Here and Abroad Intertwined: “Full Spectrum Dominance” Around the Globe, A Swelling Precariat at Home
Alan Nasser | professor emeritus of Political Economy and Philosophy at The Evergreen State College

Liu Haiyang — Whose “International Law” Are We Talking About?

A Chinese view of what happens when the US makes the rules.

On its face, the US FON [freedom of navigation] program is an effort to assert US desires upon the world oceans for the sole purpose of affording its naval and air forces the maximum degree of mobility and flexibility. In essence, through enforcing American perspective of international law in defiance of shared international perspectives of international law, the apparent provocative nature of such assertions exposes the FON operations as exercises of hegemonic power projection so as to establish a US-dominated maritime legal order beyond a world ocean legal order guaranteed under the convention. As for the FON operations conducted in the South China Sea, they are no more than a tool to carry out the US “Pivot to Asia” strategy.

CHINA US Focus
Whose “International Law” Are We Talking About?
Liu Haiyang is a research fellow at the Collaborative Innovation Center of South China Sea Studies, Nanjing University