US Vice President JD Vance revealed the Trump admin’s “generational shift in [foreign] policy”, emphasizing “hard power”, “overwhelming force”, “great power competition”, and conflict with China.
Truth is that the west never traded 'hard power' for 'soft power'. Indeed, I have always argued that there's no such thing as soft power. What they falsely call soft power is the attempt (largely successful) to disguise hard power and to thereby fool both local and external populations.
What is currently at issue is that US power, like all dispensations of power before it, is reaching the end of its shelf life. It is megalomania at its most frightening hubristic level that makes the champions of US/western hegemony unable to face this reality.
The real reason for American decline is its reliance on an outmoded economic model.
China is able to direct resources easily and decisively while the Americans fumble about and hardly can maintain existing infrastructure let alone build a more modern infrastructure. Its reliance on instant profit models means progress is limited. China doesn’t suffer from this limitation.
Crony capitalism is a burden when the world is undergoing fundamental technological change and needing to battle systemic challenges such as global warming climate change and nature & biodiversity loss. But crony capitalism and faux democracy is something the west is clinging on to, like a drowning man holding onto a block of concrete.
Worse yet, the Americans are currently trying to force the most extreme form of this rigged crony capitalism and social and environmental irresponsibiity, on the rest of the planet. That is actually what this misnamed "tarrif war" and the US focus on what it calls "non-tarrif barriers" to make "free trade deals", actually is.
They want to force everyone into their broken system that is choking the planet and actually killing human beings too.. Things like removing "regulation" aka protection of the environment, of workers rights, etc. Or to open socially important sectors of the econony to privatization: schools, water, telecommunications, healthcare etc. And by doing so entrench US billionaires and structurally impoverish people abroad, and remove their control of their societies, their ability to ensure that their society works for THEM rather than western oligarchs.
But you dont read that in the mainstream media and even the independent media has not caught on to that important point - they are still biting on the misdirection that this is about tarrif rates. It aint. Its a full on ideological and economic colonization effort.
More importantly: China has designed its economy to benefit the worker, not business profits. To ensure this, it provides a lot of social benefits easily afforded at scale by the state which in turn makes it easier for individuals to spend less of their income on these social benefits and save more and spend locally, thereby fueling national economic growth. In fact no country has higher decentralization of federal money than China, at 85% (US sends about 27% of its federal dollars to the local level). Ninety percent of Chinese own their homes and more own businesses than in the US, working safely and securely and enjoying life.
Spoken out loud but methinks JD Vance doth protest too much. I think the speech reveals weakness, not strength and an attempt to paper over the reality that the US is on the way down and China is on the way up.
That's exactly right. Like Hegseth, it's empty bragging. But he does seem to be telling those young cadets that an awful lot of them will soon wind up dead in a war.
The US cannot impose this "overwhelming force" in an offensive capacity to defeat Yemenis in Yemen. At least not without overextending itsrlf and thereby exposing self to harm by others.
So what are the chances of it being able to, in an offensive capacity, overcome China in China?
The only thing the US can do there by going to attack Chinese in China then, is kill the planet and all its people, by unleashing a nuclear exchange i.e a n existential lose-lose. Utterly pointless then.
JD Vance is supposed to be a genius businessman, but here he reveals himself to be an intellectual midget. Like pretty much everyone else in power in DC. Utter nitwits in big suits with big degreees. But not a shred of basic sense.
Record of American "hard power": Lost in Vietnam; lost in Korea; lost in Iraq; fled from Afghanistan; Libya in chaos, leading to Muslim invasion of Europe; Ukraine in chaos owing to US coup in 2014; US coup installs Al-Qaeda terrorist government in Syria; Israel becomes the most hated nation on earth. Taking on China is the last throw of the dice for a nation of losers which is $39 trillion in debt and facing bankruptcy.
"So now, the Trump administration is redirecting US foreign policy to prepare for potential war on China."
I'm not sure you remember, but this shift was initiated with Obama's "pivot to Asia" and has been progressively intensified under every president since, especially Biden.
I'm glad you're denouncing the long standing push for war against China. However, by creating the illusion that US Imperialism was somehow benign prior to the acendancy of Trump, you are covering for US Imperialism as a whole, confusing the working class and ultimately enabling such a war drive.
There are two Imperialist, genocidal, Zionists parties in the US. Trump is merely the latest stooge the ruling class has latched on to in desperation. He doesn't make the decisions as to foreign policy. Those are made by the ruling class and it's intelligence agencies. Trump will be dumped like Biden once he becomes useless to the ruling class, which will come sooner they you expect. By promoting the idea that Trump is some wicked aberration, you're paving the way for the next woke genocider in chief. Any Democrat president will continue the genocide, continue pushing the world to nuclear war with Russia and of course continue the path to war with China.
Minimum consciousness for working people today: one must absolutely reject both Imperialist parties. Never support them in any way. Build parties of the wage slaves that can effectively crush these parties and the Imperialism they will eternally represent.
Down with US Imperialism! Down with the Zionism! Down with the Ukrainian Nazi regime!
Fascistic fanatics, that's all the West has for leadership now. They are just as ideological as the previous administrations were.
American supremacy is itself an ideology. It doesn't exist as an irrefutable objective fact all can see. It exist purely in the minds of its believers. U.S. propaganda is an ideology.
They are attempting to make the world in America's image whether they realize it or not. If they want to attack any country that isn't using weapons to threaten the physical existence of the U.S. then that is because they object to that country's values. This is the same old punishing of countries for Human Rights violations or failure to get woke and embrace homosexuality as the U.S. had under all the other administrations.
This serves to prove once again that Trump isn't a person to serve as mediator over anything between Russia and Ukraine. You can't pretend to be a neutral mediator when you're working on a contract with one of the countries involved in the mediation process and offering to do business with the other country after the war is over.
Trump's refusal to investigate the assassination attempt on Putin and his failure to call for any investigations into that attempt or the attempt to take out Russia's nuclear airplane delivery arm is proof of his involvement at some level and the involvement of at least some members of his administration.
American interests is a term that can't be defined. It's an excuse to legitimate interference in the affairs of other countries. If the U.S. doesn't like a country then just have nothing to do with it but don't attack it or force other countries to shun ir.
In the end Trump isn't a peacemaker and I don't want to hear anyone say he is or that he's a victim of the Neocons that he hired.
Trump has even converted Tulsi Gabbard to the darkside. Her selection of Colonel Davis was rejected because of Israel's AIPAC lobbying against him. Trump didn't make a fuss about that.
So much for Trump objecting to perpetual wars. He's made his administration the face of perpetual war.
What is this "containing China" thing? Is China planning to take over the world? Who have they invaded? What country's governments have they overthrown? How many military bases have they established around the world? China and every other country should talk about containing the US.
Vance is living in the same fantasy world as the rest of the Trump administration. That he mentions the great battle against Ansar Allah, in which the US was decisively sent packing, is proof of this. The question now is, who is actually running "foreign policy" in the US? Somebody just saw to it that the Ukraine war will now continue indefinitely--where is Vance's boss?
Truth is that the west never traded 'hard power' for 'soft power'. Indeed, I have always argued that there's no such thing as soft power. What they falsely call soft power is the attempt (largely successful) to disguise hard power and to thereby fool both local and external populations.
What is currently at issue is that US power, like all dispensations of power before it, is reaching the end of its shelf life. It is megalomania at its most frightening hubristic level that makes the champions of US/western hegemony unable to face this reality.
The real reason for American decline is its reliance on an outmoded economic model.
China is able to direct resources easily and decisively while the Americans fumble about and hardly can maintain existing infrastructure let alone build a more modern infrastructure. Its reliance on instant profit models means progress is limited. China doesn’t suffer from this limitation.
Political as well as economic.
Crony capitalism is a burden when the world is undergoing fundamental technological change and needing to battle systemic challenges such as global warming climate change and nature & biodiversity loss. But crony capitalism and faux democracy is something the west is clinging on to, like a drowning man holding onto a block of concrete.
Worse yet, the Americans are currently trying to force the most extreme form of this rigged crony capitalism and social and environmental irresponsibiity, on the rest of the planet. That is actually what this misnamed "tarrif war" and the US focus on what it calls "non-tarrif barriers" to make "free trade deals", actually is.
They want to force everyone into their broken system that is choking the planet and actually killing human beings too.. Things like removing "regulation" aka protection of the environment, of workers rights, etc. Or to open socially important sectors of the econony to privatization: schools, water, telecommunications, healthcare etc. And by doing so entrench US billionaires and structurally impoverish people abroad, and remove their control of their societies, their ability to ensure that their society works for THEM rather than western oligarchs.
But you dont read that in the mainstream media and even the independent media has not caught on to that important point - they are still biting on the misdirection that this is about tarrif rates. It aint. Its a full on ideological and economic colonization effort.
More importantly: China has designed its economy to benefit the worker, not business profits. To ensure this, it provides a lot of social benefits easily afforded at scale by the state which in turn makes it easier for individuals to spend less of their income on these social benefits and save more and spend locally, thereby fueling national economic growth. In fact no country has higher decentralization of federal money than China, at 85% (US sends about 27% of its federal dollars to the local level). Ninety percent of Chinese own their homes and more own businesses than in the US, working safely and securely and enjoying life.
Agreed.
Spoken out loud but methinks JD Vance doth protest too much. I think the speech reveals weakness, not strength and an attempt to paper over the reality that the US is on the way down and China is on the way up.
That's exactly right. Like Hegseth, it's empty bragging. But he does seem to be telling those young cadets that an awful lot of them will soon wind up dead in a war.
Well they're certainly doing a good job reducing the US's soft power. That's for sure
The US cannot impose this "overwhelming force" in an offensive capacity to defeat Yemenis in Yemen. At least not without overextending itsrlf and thereby exposing self to harm by others.
So what are the chances of it being able to, in an offensive capacity, overcome China in China?
The only thing the US can do there by going to attack Chinese in China then, is kill the planet and all its people, by unleashing a nuclear exchange i.e a n existential lose-lose. Utterly pointless then.
JD Vance is supposed to be a genius businessman, but here he reveals himself to be an intellectual midget. Like pretty much everyone else in power in DC. Utter nitwits in big suits with big degreees. But not a shred of basic sense.
Record of American "hard power": Lost in Vietnam; lost in Korea; lost in Iraq; fled from Afghanistan; Libya in chaos, leading to Muslim invasion of Europe; Ukraine in chaos owing to US coup in 2014; US coup installs Al-Qaeda terrorist government in Syria; Israel becomes the most hated nation on earth. Taking on China is the last throw of the dice for a nation of losers which is $39 trillion in debt and facing bankruptcy.
"So now, the Trump administration is redirecting US foreign policy to prepare for potential war on China."
I'm not sure you remember, but this shift was initiated with Obama's "pivot to Asia" and has been progressively intensified under every president since, especially Biden.
I'm glad you're denouncing the long standing push for war against China. However, by creating the illusion that US Imperialism was somehow benign prior to the acendancy of Trump, you are covering for US Imperialism as a whole, confusing the working class and ultimately enabling such a war drive.
There are two Imperialist, genocidal, Zionists parties in the US. Trump is merely the latest stooge the ruling class has latched on to in desperation. He doesn't make the decisions as to foreign policy. Those are made by the ruling class and it's intelligence agencies. Trump will be dumped like Biden once he becomes useless to the ruling class, which will come sooner they you expect. By promoting the idea that Trump is some wicked aberration, you're paving the way for the next woke genocider in chief. Any Democrat president will continue the genocide, continue pushing the world to nuclear war with Russia and of course continue the path to war with China.
Minimum consciousness for working people today: one must absolutely reject both Imperialist parties. Never support them in any way. Build parties of the wage slaves that can effectively crush these parties and the Imperialism they will eternally represent.
Down with US Imperialism! Down with the Zionism! Down with the Ukrainian Nazi regime!
Usa 🇺🇸 will become a Bantustan
Mindless idiots!
Fascistic fanatics, that's all the West has for leadership now. They are just as ideological as the previous administrations were.
American supremacy is itself an ideology. It doesn't exist as an irrefutable objective fact all can see. It exist purely in the minds of its believers. U.S. propaganda is an ideology.
They are attempting to make the world in America's image whether they realize it or not. If they want to attack any country that isn't using weapons to threaten the physical existence of the U.S. then that is because they object to that country's values. This is the same old punishing of countries for Human Rights violations or failure to get woke and embrace homosexuality as the U.S. had under all the other administrations.
This serves to prove once again that Trump isn't a person to serve as mediator over anything between Russia and Ukraine. You can't pretend to be a neutral mediator when you're working on a contract with one of the countries involved in the mediation process and offering to do business with the other country after the war is over.
Trump's refusal to investigate the assassination attempt on Putin and his failure to call for any investigations into that attempt or the attempt to take out Russia's nuclear airplane delivery arm is proof of his involvement at some level and the involvement of at least some members of his administration.
American interests is a term that can't be defined. It's an excuse to legitimate interference in the affairs of other countries. If the U.S. doesn't like a country then just have nothing to do with it but don't attack it or force other countries to shun ir.
In the end Trump isn't a peacemaker and I don't want to hear anyone say he is or that he's a victim of the Neocons that he hired.
Trump has even converted Tulsi Gabbard to the darkside. Her selection of Colonel Davis was rejected because of Israel's AIPAC lobbying against him. Trump didn't make a fuss about that.
So much for Trump objecting to perpetual wars. He's made his administration the face of perpetual war.
What is this "containing China" thing? Is China planning to take over the world? Who have they invaded? What country's governments have they overthrown? How many military bases have they established around the world? China and every other country should talk about containing the US.
will lead our civilization directly into a nuclear apocalypse
Vance is living in the same fantasy world as the rest of the Trump administration. That he mentions the great battle against Ansar Allah, in which the US was decisively sent packing, is proof of this. The question now is, who is actually running "foreign policy" in the US? Somebody just saw to it that the Ukraine war will now continue indefinitely--where is Vance's boss?
Holden Bloodfeast is stoked.
Tganks! Been wondering when we’d get a new report from Ben’s Geopolitical Economy Report.