Eric Zuesse
The main ideological conflict in the world used to be between capitalism versus communism. After the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, that became replaced by the ideological conflict being between imperialism and anti-imperialism. With the expansion of America's NATO military alliance against Russia, after 1991 - after the communist dictatorship there had ended - to include as new members all of the Soviet Union's former Warsaw Pact allies in Europe, and with America's aim now being to bring into NATO the former Soviet allies to the south of Russia, such as Azerbaijan and Georgia, American imperialism is viewed in Russia increasingly as an existential threat, which it certainly is.
The basic difference between the U.S. Government and its allies, on the one hand, and between Russia and China and their allies, on the other, is the same difference in either case: whereas the U.S. and its allies require other Governments to follow their instructions, and consider their own instructions to be moral demands (and thereby binding, actually commands instead of mere suggestions), Russia and China and their allies reject - on principle - any country's dictating to another. They don't consider it to be moral, at all, but instead profoundly immoral - they consider it to be imperialistic, dictatorial, bullying, hostile toward international democracy - and they simply won't accept it; they reject it morally, outright. Iran, too, feels that way about the matter. So, too, do many other countries. That's the basic difference: the imperialists versus the anti-imperialists.
In other words: the U.S. and its allies consider imperialism - the supposed right of a nation to command another nation - to be something that should be within the bounds of, and accepted by, international law. The U.S. Empire doesn't call itself an "Empire," but it is one, and its empire is therefore called instead "the Washington Consensus", which is a "consensus" in hostility against whatever countries the U.S. Government wants to become regime-changed - to turn into an American colony. The "Washington Consensus" is actually an imposed 'consensus'. It is a consensus against nations that disobey that 'consensus'.
The very concept of the "Washington Consensus" was created in 1989 when Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the communist Soviet Union, was unwilling to apply the amount of force that might hold the Soviet Union together, and the anti-communist Revolutions of 1989 in the Soviet Union and in China made clear that communism was about to end in at least the Soviet sphere, and that consequently the American rationale for the Cold War - anti-communism - would soon end. So, America, having perpetrated many 'anti-communist'(but actually anti-independence, and in some cases even boldly anti-democracy) coups in Thailand 1948, Syria 1949, Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, and many other lands, needed a changed ideological excuse, in order to continue building-out its Empire (not yet called "the Washington Consensus"); so, the "Washington Consensus" became, itself, the new excuse. This 'consensus'of the U.S. and its allies consists in the imposition of "libertarian" or "neo-liberal" economic policies, as being an international obligation for countries in the "developing world" to accept and apply (often called "austerity," because it is austerity for the masses of that underdeveloped country's citizens, so that foreign investors can reap the profits from it). This 'consensus'became the new ideological excuse to extend the American Empire. However, as the appeal of "neo-liberalism" began to wane (as a result of its increasingly bad international reputation), a new excuse was increasingly needed. "R2P," or "Responsibility to Protect" the residents in other lands, became introduced, especially after around the year 2000, as the new, 'humanitarian', excuse for America and its vassal nations ('allies') to apply sanctions against, and even to invade and occupy, countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Venezuela - countries that, 'just by coincidence', happened to reject the Washington Consensus. This new excuse for America's spending approximately half of the entire world's annual military costs was more clearly putting forward the Washington Consensus as constituting the 'real'United Nations - the one that had a military force (and that didn't have Russia, China, or any other recalcitrant nation, on any "Security Council"). The U.S. regime champions R2P as being a 'humanitarian'motivation behind such sanctions, coups, and invasions, for 'regime-change'against recalcitrant countries, such as Iraq, Syria, and Venezuela. The American anti-'communist'organization, Human Rights Watch, and the British anti-'communist'organization Amnesty International, now became especially prominent, as public endorsers of R2P. Often, however, subversion by the U.S. succeeded at conquest, without there even being any need to apply sanctions (or worse). R2P isn't necessary for those types of operations - subversion. An example is Brazil, in regard to the ending of any functional democracy in Brazil and the imprisonment of the popular democratically elected President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ("Lula") and replacement of him by a far-right regime. The U.S. regime, prominently including Joe Biden, did it, so as to extract from Brazil's poor the money to pay to foreign investors to buy and strip that nation, in accord with the dictates of the IMF and the rest of the Washington 'consensus'. By the time of 19 July 2017, the U.S. Justice Department publicly admitted "It is hard to imagine a better cooperative relationship in recent history than that of the United States Department of Justice and the Brazilian prosecutors" who had rigged the 'evidence'that got President Lula thrown into prison. A remarkable article at Brazil Wire - which has been copied many times to the web archives - "Hidden History: The U.S. 'War On Corruption'In Brazil", documents (with 77 links) U.S. subversion, which had regained U.S. control of that country, by means of a coup that was a cooperative effort by the aristocracies of both the United States and Brazil. Subsequently, on 15 June 2019, The Intercept bannered "Glenn Greenwald Explains the Political Earthquake in Brazil Caused by Our Ongoing Exposés" and linked to, and described, how the anonymously supplied evidence that they had published had laid bare the rigging of the case against Lula that had transformed Brazil from being a budding democracy, into its present fascist regime - again into being a country that U.S.-and-allied billionaires can exploit virtually without limit.
The U.S. regime's emphasis upon 'corruption'had been central to the 'justification'of ousting Lula. This is an example of another excuse that the U.S. and its allies employ in order to 'justify'their imperialism: it's America's global 'anti-corruption'campaign. Agents of U.S. billionaires had actually established Transparency International at the very same time as they did the Washington Consensus, as a means to rig the corruption-rankings of countries, so that the World Bank would be able to 'justify' charging higher interest rates to countries that America's aristocracy aim to conquer (regardless of whether that conquest was by subversion - such as in Brazil - or else by sanctions, or by coup, or by military invasion).
Consequently, the American Empire started, on 26 July 1945, in order to 'conquer communism'(U.S. President Harry S. Truman, on that date, got sucker-punched into that support of imperialism, and he remained so); and, then, after 24 February 1990, that ideological excuse morphed into the "Washington Consensus" imposition of "libertarian" or "neo-liberal" economic policies; and, then, it morphed yet again, into 'responsibility to protect' (or, as one of its champions put it, 'Sovereignty is an anachronistic concept' and should therefore be ignored); and, then, the alleged motivation came increasingly to rely upon 'anti-corruption'. Regardless of the excuse, however, the actual intention has remained unchanged, ever since the Cold War started on 26 July 1945. Basically, America would impose its own world-government, and only the excuses for it were changing, over time - new paint on an old building - and, "To hell with the UN!" Billionaires'greed was never being presented as the motivation behind their empire (just as the aristocracy's greed has been behind every empire). But, after the time of Ronald Reagan's election to the U.S. Presidency in 1980, the idea that "Greed is good" has been advocated by some U.S. officials; and some Americans even use that idea (such as "capitalism") in order to argue for the Washington Consensus.
The U.S. and its allies believe that the English Empire is okay; the U.S. Empire is okay; the Spanish Empire was okay; the Italian Empire was okay, the French Empire was okay, the Dutch Empire was okay, the Portuguese Empire was okay; the German Empire was okay; the Russian Empire was okay; the Japanese Empire was okay; the Chinese Empire was okay, and so forth. And, this imperialism-accepting view of morality is profoundly contrary to the morality of today's Russia, China, and their allies, all of which believe, instead, that imperialism by any nation is evil, because each nation's Government is sovereign over its own land, and because national sovereignty consists in the right of each nation's Government to rule over all of the internal matters within its own land-area. No national government, or alliance of national governments, should be able to dictate anything of the internal affairs in any other country. This is democracy between nations; it is international democracy. Democracy (or not) within a nation is no valid concern of international law, but is inevitably and entirely a matter of national law: the nation's Constitution, and the entire national legal system. Foreigners should not be dictating that. To do so is international dictatorship.
Though all nations share a view that international matters require international agreements and international laws which are based upon international agreements, and therefore they all share the view that an international government, of some sort, is required, in order to enforce international agreements, the imperialistic countries believe themselves actually to be such international governments, or else that they are being ruled by such an international government ("the Empire," "the Washington Consensus," or whatever they might call it). The anti-imperialist countries believe that that's not true, and that imperialism is what leads to interference in the internal affairs within other countries, and thereby produces wars, which are especially evil wars - ones that are of the aggressive type, aiming to expand the attacking nation's control, to extend over additional lands. That's international theft. Russia, China, and their allies, refuse to accept it.
Whereas anti-imperialist countries believe that any violation of a nation's sovereignty - other than in response to an invasion from that country - is evil, pro-imperialist countries believe that it's good, if one country agrees to be ruled by another country. (In the view of pro-imperialists, the agreement of one country to be ruled by another is alleged to be sometimes voluntary, and not to be the result of invasion and conquest or other means of external control - it's alleged to be a 'voluntary'empire. Normally, the imperial country demands each of its 'allies', or vassal-nations, to say that their 'alliance'is 'voluntary'. This myth is part of the imperial system.)
What politically divides the world today is precisely this difference: imperialism versus anti-imperialism - NOT capitalism versus socialism. (In fact, some countries, such as the Scandinavian ones, blend capitalism with socialism, and maintain higher levels of democracy than do the more ideologically rigid and more purely capitalistic countries such as the United States do.) So, there isn't (and there never really was) any necessary correlation between democracy on the one hand, and capitalism versus socialism on the other: it was a figment of U.S.-allied propagandists'imaginations - a lie - to suggest that capitalism goes with democracy. Nazi Germany was capitalist; fascist Italy was capitalist; imperialist Japan was capitalist, but they all were dictatorships, not, at all, democracies. For example: the Italian dictator Mussolini - the founder of fascism - said that fascism is "corporationism," and he rejected both socialism and democracy. You can read here Mussolini's essay on "Capitalism and the Corporatist State", in which he was defining "fascism," or his synonym for it, "corporationism," and what he said in that essay describes the U.S. and its allied Governments today, as they actually are: today's U.S. and its allied Governments are "corporationist" or "fascist," as Mussolini described that, in 1933. Earlier, in 1914, Mussolini had said that "I shout it loudly: anti-war propaganda is a propaganda of cowardice." He said that every nation seeks to expand, and that there is nothing wrong with this: "Imperialism is the eternal and immutable law of life. At bottom it is but the need, the desire, and the will for expansion, which every living, healthy individual or people has in itself." He wasn't similar to America's leader in the 1930s, but he was similar to most American leaders of today. (For example, Barack Obama - though silk-tongued, unlike the less-deceptive and more forthright Mussolini - said repeatedly that every nation except America is "dispensable": only America is not.) On 2 October 1935, Mussolini announced his war on Ethiopia, as providing a way for Ethiopians to share in Italy's glory: "For many months the wheel of destiny, under the impulse of our calm determination, has been moving toward its goal; now its rhythm is faster and can no longer be stopped. Here is not just an army marching toward a military objective, but a whole people, forty-four million souls, against whom the blackest of all injustices has been committed - that of denying them a place in the sun."
Basically, what Truman started on 26 July 1945 was America's becoming, itself, a fascist nation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was deeply anti-fascist, and had hoped to start the UN as the international democratic federal republic of nations, but Truman shaped what the UN became instead, which is a mere talking-forum that can do only what there exists virtual unanimity to do. So, effectively, "international law" has become, and now is, whatever the U.S. regime wants to do. Tin-pot invading dictators can be prosecuted, but America's invading dictators (who lead vastly more mass-murdering and destructions of nations than the tin-pot ones do) can't. FDR and the allies ( especially Russia, which wasn't even a democracy) defeated the fascists, but Truman (largely by mistake, instead of by intention) led the fascist resurgence and post-WW-II victory.
-- First, this difference, between the U.S. and the countries that it attacks, will be exemplified here in the case of U.S. versus China, and then it will be exemplified in the case of U.S. versus Russia. In each instance, the example applies also with regard to each of those two countries'allies:
On October 9th, America's Public Radio International (PRI) bannered "Biden says he'll make China quit coal. Can he deliver?", and sub-headed "China is on a coal spree, financing and providing technical expertise to roughly 60 new coal-fired power plants outside its borders." But China (unlike the United States) is actually committing itself to reduce, instead of to expand, its usage of coal, and that fact is simply omitted from the PRI article, because PRI (like all of America's major news-media) is an agency of U.S. Government propaganda - indoctrination. How, then, can their article claim "China is on a coal spree?" Is it simply a lie? No. The article isn't about that (China's domestic coal-usage). It is strictly about China's building coal plants in other countries, because this is the issue that provides U.S. propagandists an opportunity to present the Chinese Government as being in need of regime-change. That's essential, in order to maintain public support for the U.S. Government's anti-China sanctions and other hostile policies toward China. It's propaganda, for sanctions, subversion, and maybe later a coup, or even an outright U.S.-and-allied invasion, against China.
As regards China's domestic usage of coal, an article was published, on September 30th, in the significantly less propagandistic (because not so beholden to the U.S. or any Government) Asia Times, headlined "China's carbon neutral pledge - pipe dream or reality?", which sub-headlined "Xi's goal to be carbon neutral by 2060 clashes with China's geopolitical interests," and that article noted how extraordinarily dependent, upon coal, China - a coal-rich nation - is, and has been while its economy has been growing at a breakneck pace. This article also noted: "The U.S., the world's largest economy, and second largest carbon dioxide emitter, for its part, is the only major world power that has not announced plans to go carbon neutral." That fact, of course - America's refusal to go carbon-neutral, and its 4 November 2019 abandonment of the 2016 Paris climate agreement, which both China and Russia remain committed to - somewhat punctures the U.S. Government's case against China as being a global-warming villain. The U.S. doesn't even have plans to restrict its CO2-emissions.
Furthermore, this news-article opened:
China is trying to spearhead a new climate change agenda that has the potential to dramatically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by next decade and beyond and help the world's second largest economy and most populous nation become a global climate change leader.
Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping surprised his listeners at the virtual UN General Assembly in New York when he announced that China would be carbon neutral before 2060, and ensured that its greenhouse gas emissions would peak in the next decade.
This is a severe contrast to the U.S. Government. Nothing was said about it in the PRI article.
The PRI article deals with this problem for U.S. propagandists by falsely insinuating (which is the way that propaganda usually works) that the Chinese Government's publicly announced plans are not to be taken seriously but are only communist propaganda:
Inside China, those overseas coal plants are often portrayed as benevolent. Jingjing Zhang, one of China's top environmental lawyers, said that "from the Chinese government perspective, it is a way of giving. 'We are helping the developing world... helping those countries have a better economy.'"
And if its smoke-spewing projects drive up the world's temperatures?
"The argument from China's government," Zhang said, "is that it's not the Chinese government's responsibility. It is the host government's responsibility."
Actually, that view, which is expressed by China's Government, is a basic operating principle of that Government's foreign policies. It isn't just propaganda; it is, instead, ideology - it is China's, Russia's, Iran's, and many other countries', ideology: anti-imperialism (versus America's imperialism, America's moralistic 'regime change'con, like "Saddam's WMD"). Just as imperialism has become America's ideology, anti-imperialism is the ideology of the countries that the U.S. propaganda-media attack.
The anti-imperialist ideology (supporting international democracy among and between nations - rejection of international dictatorship - instead of supporting international conquest and occupation or control over nations) was stated privately by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the closing years of World War II - he blamed both of the two World Wars on imperialism, and was passionately committed to ending imperialism, by means of the United Nations. That's an institution he actually invented, and even named (but all of this was done privately, not publicly, because he wanted buy-in from both Stalin and Churchill, and the latter, Churchill, argued ferociously with him against it, because Churchill was - and had always been - a champion of continuing, and even expanding, the British Empire). But FDR died on 12 April 1945, just before the UN would be organized. And his immediate successor, Harry S. Truman, shaped the UN so as for imperialism to be able to continue, in order for America to become the world's first global empire, by means of sanctions, coups, and outright invasions, in order for the U.S. Government to be able to spread its influence and control. After WW II, America developed the biggest empire the world has ever had.
FDR's concept of international law was that only a democratic global federation of nations, which he planned to be the "United Nations," would, or even could, be the source for international law, because, otherwise, the history that had produced the two world wars - contending and competing gangs of nations, imposing their 'laws'upon their conquests, and trying to expand their empire - would continue. And that ancient system, of empires, has been continuing, despite what had been FDR's hopes and plans. The UN that was created, was designed by Truman's people, not by FDR's.
I have written elsewhere about how crucial this difference of moral viewpoints is between Putin and the U.S. Government, which also explains why the U.S. and its allies also want to regime-change him and grab Russia. In terms of domestic policies, Putin is determined that the State not be controlled by the nation's billionaires; and this, too, is a principle that the U.S. Government and its allies cannot tolerate. (The Washington Consensus instead endorses it, in principle, as part of "the free market.") The U.S. and its allies refuse to accept any nation's leader who is unalterably opposed either to being controlled from abroad, or to being controlled by his/her own nation's billionaires. FDR refused for America to be controlled by America's, or by any country's, billionaires.
FDR was correct; Churchill was wrong; but Truman sided with Churchill (who got backed up by General Eisenhower, who seems to have clinched Truman's decision because Ike was an American). And, on 24 February 1990, G.H.W. Bush made the equally fateful decision to continue Truman's Cold War. And all the rest is history. Truman and G.H.W. Bush shaped it. We are living in it. It did trillions of dollars worth of good for the investors in corporations such as Lockheed and Exxon. That decision, by the U.S. Government, has been the choice of the people, America's international billionaires, who, behind the scenes, have controlled the U.S. Government after FDR died, on 12 April 1945. It's the new America: the imperial America. And it's done not only by America's Presidents, but by almost all members of the U.S. Congress. For a typical example of this: the 2017 "Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act", against Russia and against Iran, passed by 419 to 3 in the U.S. House, and then 98 to 2 in the U.S. Senate. Imperialism is just about the only issue on which there is virtual unanimity in today's Washington. It is truly bipartisan, there. Both of the billionaires'Parties are war Parties. This is especially remarkable for a country that no country even threatens to invade (much less has invaded, since 7 December 1941). Its military Department is called the "Defense Department," instead of the "Aggression Department." Is that name dishonest? Should it be changed, to something more honest? Maybe it should be changed back, again, to being called the "War Department." But, unlike when was called that, it now is 100% the Aggression Department. So, shouldn't it be called that, now? Shouldn't a spade be called a "spade," instead of just "a gardening tool"? If it's the Aggression Department, why don't they call it that?