The United States is slowly but surely losing its global hegemony. Most of the large states, which for a long time were loyal allies and entered the orbit of American influence, no longer just kick and play pranks, but more and more often act, regardless of the instructions of the Washington chiefs.
Failures and problems everywhere: "color revolutions", NATO, diplomacy, military equipment
Significant displacement of the American military from the Middle East, the counterproductiveness of the trade and sanctions wars against China and Russia, the domestic political vaudeville of the last presidential elections, the kicking of Germany with Nord Stream 2 and Turkey on a range of issues from the purchase of the S-400 to the Nagorno-Karabakh war, but the most important thing is the US exodus from Afghanistan and the slipping of the State Department's signature technique - "color revolutions". First, the "swamp" in Russia failed. It seemed to be a temporary setback, the first touchstone. But the further development of the situation showed that the intensification of pro-American forces inside Russia, including the operation with the poisoning of Navalny, was successfully stopped, and today the prospect of the liberal opposition coming to power is vanishingly small. Meanwhile, the coup d'état in Turkey (2016) failed, the failed Maidans in Venezuela (2019), Hong Kong (2019-2020), Belarus (2020), Cuba (2021) show that the traditional toolkit for changing the regimes unwanted by the United States is seriously malfunctioning.
Aggressive pro-American militarypolitical NATO, a traditional pillar of US foreign policy, is torn by contradictions between its members. And not only between the leader of the alliance and other participants, as in the situation with the purchase of the S-400 or the French demarche regarding AUKUS. So, in 2020, Greece and Turkey were on the verge of war, and France sent a fleet and aircraft to the Mediterranean to support the Greeks.
American diplomacy is failing after failure. They did not succeed in restraining Kim Jong-un, and in pushing Xi Jinping in either. The United States found itself isolated from solving the problem of the Iranian nuclear program. Pompeo's appeal to the entire "free world" to start a cold war against China went unheard by most of the allies. In general, everyone has already understood that the Americans are taking too much on themselves, and no one is afraid of them as before.
Moreover, in recent years, the myth of the military-technical superiority of the American military has been blown away. It turned out that, despite the colossal funding, in the most promising areas of weapons development, they either have no advantage, or it is controversial. The US military itself periodically whines that potential adversaries are ahead of the US in information, hypersonic and unmanned technologies. And if we exclude Saudi Arabia from the export deliveries of American arms, which has been disgraced in Yemen for several years now, losing to the Houthis in flip flops, it is clear that interest in the products of the overseas military-industrial complex is cooling more and more.
It is increasingly difficult for the Americans to maintain hegemony even in the Western world, given the failures and problems in these critical areas - the export of influence through color revolutions, diplomacy, military bloc and weapons. The governments and political forces of different countries put on a pencil not only every stumbling and every Biden reservation, but also every failure of US international policy. Fear turns into fear, and fear turns into disrespect and disregard. And for the empire, there is no greater risk than disrespect and withdrawal.
The habit of dominating
American politicians and the American oligarchy have long developed the habit of world domination. Usually in the literature, the hegemonic role of the United States is explained simply - America defeated the USSR in the Cold War, so it remained the only superpower. The bipolar world naturally became unipolar. But the question should be put somewhat deeper - why did the United States manage to occupy a central place in the Western world in its confrontation with the USSR?
If you look a little into history, it is easy to see that prior to the 1950s, Western countries were no less hostile to the USSR than during the Cold War. However, they did not manage to put together a united front either during the years of the intervention in Soviet Russia, or in the interwar period. What factor has changed so radically that after World War II the entire Western world rallied around the United States against the socialist camp? It can be assumed that the filigree foreign policy of the United States was the reason for this, but the facts suggest otherwise. It can be assumed that the reasons for this were the elimination of the "cordon sanitaire" around the USSR and the sharp approach of the "borders of communism" to Europe, which really had a certain value. It can also be suggested that the political dominance of the United States was caused by its economic domination and the marshalling of war-torn Europe, which also really had a certain, but not decisive, importance.
However, it seems that the main reason that the United States took a central, hegemonic place in the Cold War against the USSR was the erroneous, unreasonable foreign policy of the USSR after Stalin. If under the "leader of the peoples" the principle of the necessity of "playing on the contradictions between the imperialists," advanced by Lenin, was still confessed, then Khrushchev abandoned it in favor of the "thaw". The USSR itself elevated the United States to the leaders of the "capitalist world", and itself to the hegemon of the "camp of socialism", trying to establish peaceful relations between these two international substances. The USSR itself, with its mighty hands, forged the unity of all anti-Soviet world forces, contributed to their rallying around the United States. The CPSU and the Soviet people, of course, were flattered that their country had rallied half the world around itself and that they were opposed by the decaying, greedy West, but in reality this policy turned out to be naively stupid.
Firstly, when the top of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union collapsed the USSR, the rest of the socialist countries fell down as well, whose parties in power were incapacitated without Moscow's orders. Secondly, the United States took advantage of its chance and tied its allies to itself as much as possible. This is how a brief historical moment of absolute American world domination emerged in the late XNUMXth and early XNUMXst centuries. But nothing lasts forever under the Moon, so the allies after the collapse of the USSR began to gradually break out of the bonds of Uncle Sam. And the US attempt to rally them against China is failing primarily because the CCP takes into account the sad experience of the CPSU, playing on the contradictions of Western countries, and does not welcome the "export of revolution."
Wounded beast's final throw
The story of the loss of hegemony and leadership often follows the same scenario. At a certain moment of withering, politicians come up with a "brilliant idea" to solve all problems in one fell swoop. Namely, a small victorious war. It hasn't helped anyone yet, but the inertia of the habit of dominance is always stronger than reason and historical lessons.
There is no doubt that the American military-political leadership is looking for options in order to weighty demonstrate to all the world that “there is still gunpowder in the flasks”, that the great, powerful, exceptional America did not say its last word.
There is no doubt that the main region that Americans consider on their strategic globes is Asia, because the main opponents of the United States are located there. The most likely scenarios are the war on the Korean Peninsula and the fomenting of a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. They both suggest a local nuclear resolution.
Since the initiation of a “small victorious war” does not imply diplomatic preparation and the ripening of conflict factors, it is dangerous because of its suddenness. Only a decisive and coordinated opposition of all supporters of peace and opponents of American hegemonism, aimed at changing the balance of power in possible "hot spots", can confuse the plans of the aggressor. But so far, neither in Chinese nor in Russian foreign policy, nor in the efforts of the United Nations, there is a tendency towards preemptive actions. All are complacently convinced that the withering hegemon in his agony will not reach a full-scale military conflict.