Pepe Escobar — New Silk Roads define brand China

Pepe Escobar explains how the BRI is the defining concept of the rest of the 21st century, not just brand China. Sea power will no longer be key geopolitically, which shuts out the chief advantage of the Anglo-American Empire, since the core of the empire consists of relatively small islands in comparison with the vastness of the world island as the "geographical pivot of history" (Halford Mackinder).

Asia Times
New Silk Roads define brand China

Pepe Escobar

James Petras — The Rising Tide of Militarism in the 21st Century: From Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump

US militarism expanded exponentially through the first two decades of the Twenty-First Century, and was embraced by both Democratic and Republican Presidents. The mass media’s hysteria towards President Trump’s increase in military spending deliberately ignores the vast expansion of militarism, in all its facets, under President Obama and his two predecessors, Presidents ‘Bill’ Clinton and George Bush, Jr.

We will proceed in this essay to compare and discuss the unbroken rise of militarism over the past seventeen years. We will then demonstrate that militarism is an essential structural feature of US imperialism’s insertion in the international system.…

Global domination is only possible through military means. Foreign policy elites and military strategists are in general agreement that the quest for domination has been the historical norm. If one powerful country and its allies don't dominate, then another powerful country and its allies will. It's just how these people think. This us the key assumption. It is the given that no one questions.

James Petras Website
The Rising Tide of Militarism in the 21st Century: From Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump
James Petras | Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia