The Great Power that Isn’t

Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s question dismissing allegations of election tampering strikes a lingering note of irony as the year 2017 begins. By the time the “honeymoon” first one-hundred days period of fevered activity – by soon-to-be President Donald Trump and his new Administration – ends it will be clear to every thinking individual on the planet that the United States of America does not, in fact, exist any longer (and possibly hasn’t existed for some time).

If by “the United States of America” one means a functional Great Power with coherent policies toward the outside world, then the above is very obviously true. A simulacrum exists, absolutely, but even this is in such an advanced state of decay that further pretense becomes almost pitiable.

One might argue that the reason Donald Trump was placed into office was to arrest the disintegration of the USA; but one might also contend that he was selected rather than elected to manage the disintegration so that it doesn’t get out of control (leading to a nuclear war, for example). A person might further point out, given the behavior of the Obama Administration, that certain elements of America’s elite realize full well the hopelessness of the situation and have been secretly selling off Great Power assets (such as ideology, governmental institutions, and even military might) for the last eight years in an illicit effort to squirrel away private fortunes.

Consider the acts of the first Obama Administration. Resource depletion, pollution, and overpopulation had ended open-ended economic growth by the time the “Clinton Stand-In” took office in 2009. Having thereafter no “emission pump” with which to pay out the servants of Empire, Obama reverted to the tried-and-true methods all empires have had to use – ‘Smash-and-Grab’ (i.e., conquer a territory, plunder its treasury, use part to pay maintenance costs and part to launch further conquests). Thus, the USA invaded Libya, looted its gold and cash and sold its hydrocarbon rights, then used part of the spoils to pay maintenance costs and part to conquer Syria, where the process should have begun yet again. This Ponzi scheme can only go on for so long, of course, and it ended when the Russian Federation forced an Obama Administration climb down vis-à-vis Syria in 2013. Just as Rome fell when it ran out of defenseless kingdoms to savage, so too the United States began to fall when it confronted powers able to defend themselves.

And just as Roman politics became chaotic once the empire had only Germans (who had no gold) and Parthians (who had gold, but also professional armies) as targets, so too are American politics becoming maddened now that its only targets are essentially the Russian Federation and China. These countries can defeat the United States. No longer able to serially ingest nations having easy wealth, America is cut off from fresh infusions of gold, oil, and gas with which to pay maintenance costs; and, therefore, the empire cannot be maintained. This can only mean catabolic collapse for global Atlanticism.

The decaying lich of the United States of America may perhaps shamble on a year or two for appearances-sake, but by the end of the first Trump term of office its dollars will be welcome in far, far fewer places around the world and hyperinflation will claw quietly home to roost.

It should be no surprise, then, that Clinton Foundation investors criminally siphoned away the wealth of Gaddafi (a sum approaching half a trillion US dollars). When hyperinflation hits, Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators will need billions to keep millions. It remains surprising, however, how badly the Libyan ‘Smash-and-Grab’ mauled not only that once most stable of North African nations, but also that once most important keystone of American Empire – its ideology. The very idea that the United States of America is a benefit to the world died with Gaddafi. Was this not a foreseeable effect of the operation? If so, then the elite faction behind Hillary Clinton essentially cashed-in America’s cultural hegemony for purposes of private profiteering.

Hillary Clinton’s liquidation sales cannot be limited to ideological items only, however. Any understanding of the events of the twenty-first century must also include the equally important sell-off of governmental institutions at the national level. Again, consider the acts of the First Obama Administration. The Uranium One Affair, the Qatar-Turkey natural gas pipeline, the Chinese J-31 Stealth Fighter plans, the F-35 Lightning II Multirole Fighter, the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, and many other examples prove that the United States Department of Energy, the State Department and all other national security bureaucracies, and even developing world disaster relief agencies have all been secretly sold to private interests for purposes of accumulating fortunes. The same can be said of the White House, the Supreme Court, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Congress.

The latter is best exemplified by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States in March of 2015. This foreign leader arrived in the United States uninvited by the White House and delivered a set of demands (that ran directly counter to the nation’s interests) to a Joint Session of the US Congress. After much horse-trading, the man got every single thing that he wanted. Even the Iran Nuclear Deal has, since its formal signing, been exposed as a fraud perpetrated upon Iran and the Russian Federation by the United States (again, against its logical national interests). In March of 2015, the American mercenary army closing in on Damascus seemed on the cusp of victory. Thus, Netanyahu could secretly offer much in return for Congress’ granting of his every desire. 

Not so, in 2017.

In 2017, the entire world reels before the spectacle of the aftermath of the US Presidential Election. President Obama’s disgraceful after-election behaviour, however, is not the most profoundly disconcerting revelation of “failed state” status on the part of the American Empire.

The event causing the most bone-shuddering reactions in the international arena is the September 17^th, 2016, attack by US, Australian and Dutch warplanes on al-Tharda Mountain in the region of Deir ez-Zor, Syria. This air attack was not authorized by America’s Commander-in-Chief. It was a rogue operation. Even a report released by the US Central Command on November 29th shows that senior US Air Force officers at the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar ordered the September airstrike at Deir ez-Zor in response to pressure from actors having absolutely no authority over official US foreign policy. Any number of indicators prove this. 

The Americans:

• misled the Russians about where the US intended to strike so Russia could not warn them that they were targeting Syrian troops
• ignored information and intelligence analysis warning that the positions to be struck were Syrian government rather than Islamic State
• shifted abruptly from a deliberate targeting process to an immediate strike in violation of normal Air Force procedures
• refused to respond to Russian alerts, thereby allowing the attack to continue for over an hour.

This premeditated action torpedoed the hard-won Kerry-Lavrov Agreement of September 9^th that would have separated “the moderate opposition” from Al Qaeda terrorists. It would have also begun close cooperation between the armed forces of Russia and the United States. Essentially, the agreement would have ended the war, except that several US officials (such as Michael Morell) are secret Clinton Foundation investors who cling to the possibility of realizing a fat return from that Smash-and-Grab. Hence, the United States of America’s military might must be understood to have been sold off for private gain. Why? Because, as economist Herbert Stein once said, “Things that can’t go on forever . . . don’t.” 

Circumstantial evidence suggests that the Clinton wing of Neoconservatism in America has understood this truism for quite some time.

As I argued in my Katehon essay, “The Election that Wasn’t”, Russia decided almost exactly two years ago to strike the United States of America with all of her nuclear might. The decision-making team around President Putin must have rightly analysed the evidence coming in from every direction that the United States had been secretly selling off its strategic interests for years. It must have realised that the US could never respond to a Russian nuclear first strike. Even were the simulacrum able to survive an initial blow, its war fighting system was an amply demonstrated failure. One hundred and forty million tightly and passionately united Russians could defeat three hundred and thirty million divided Americans who loathed each other and hated their government. The Syria Campaign has made the above situation crystal clear to the whole world. And so now one sees country after country (Egypt, the Philippines, various Balkan states, Great Britain and most importantly Turkey) recoiling from the United States of America as though from a disease-ridden corpse.

As this process continues and the One Belt, One Road project picks up steam, that zombie formally known as the United States will retreat from all but Latin America and will refrain from all clandestinely manipulative, arms running, narcotics trafficking, and war-fighting (terrorist) initiatives.

And this will be of benefit to all mankind.