By Clement Kpeklitsu
The two-decades long US occupation of Afghanistan has ended in humiliating defeat, with President Joe Biden seemingly betraying his globalist liberal-international instincts by saying about the end of the era of major military operations to remake other states.
The US, it seems, has sworn off foreign intervention, for the time being. The change, if it holds up, couldn’t be more drastic. America was at the height of its power when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001, but now, 20 years later, the age of global hegemony has evidently come to an end.
The rational response on that side of the Atlantic would be to change – to realign and readjust foreign policy priorities to match the problems it is facing in the world, maximizing its security. But structural incentives and vested interests – are firmly in favor of keeping on as normal and doing the same, meaning Washington may end up not acting in its own interests.
It is worth noting that when in 2001 the United States intensified its pursuit of foreign wars, putting ideology above security in order to achieve «global hegemony», showing indisputable American superiority. However, this was temporary, as the country was depleting its resources, gradually transferring wealth from the national core to the periphery of its empire.
Now, facing new realities and a weakened war-chest back home, realist foreign policy thinkers have to continue two possible paths. The first – continuing to pursue hegemony and domination, ignoring the reality of relative decline. American debt is spiraling out of control, the dollar is coming under pressure, socio and the country’s allies are losing faith in its security guarantees. All the while, Washington’s rivals are building an anti-hegemony movement designed to give them a place in a multi-polar world. The second option is to adjust to the new international distribution of power by pulling back on the military posturing to restore fiscal discipline, returning NATO to the status of a status-quo organization that does not expand or go «out-of-area» and to negotiate a multipolar system with Eurasian powers such as China where the US can ideally assert the role as the «first among equals».
On paper, the second option seems more reasonable, but it is unlikely, most likely, the United States will continue its current path.
The defense industry occupies an important place in the United States when conducting military operations, planning military operations, spending huge amounts of the country’s money. Defence firms finance the think tanks and research centers that provide their «expertise» through the media and consulting policymakers. The top 50 think tanks in the US receive more than $1 billion from the US government and defence contractors, annually. Just imagine that it’s equivalent to the entire yearly military budget of a rich medium-sized country like Ireland.
The largest recipient is the RAND Corporation, which advocates weakening competitive countries by further increasing US nuclear and conventional forces, arming Ukraine, supporting Syrian rebels and backing regime change in Belarus, exploiting tensions in the South Caucasus
The second and third places of top-funded think tanks, which overwhelm any influence from objective academics, include the Centre for a New American Century (CNAS) and NATO lobby group The Atlantic Council. As practice shows, analytical centers are constantly developing a business model of selling political influence.
Even digital media platform Facebook have established a partnership with think tanks like The Atlantic Council to «protect democracy», most likely, under government pressure or, at least, due to «encouragement» from figures close to the centre of power.
Indeed, liberal democracy has been promoted as a hegemonic norm for such a long time that an entire industry of «nongovernmental organizations» such as Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy has emerged, which link «democracy promotion» to NATO expansion in the post-Soviet space.
After leaving Afghanistan, the United States will soon begin searching for another country where it can invade under the guise of fighting terrorism and do what they want. After all, the confrontation with terror is not over yet-especially because of the annual spending of $ 714 billion, which goes into unnecessary channels. It can be concluded that the US defense industry will do everything to ensure its survival.
