:: United States
US Global Power: The Trump Period: An Assessment
05.01.2019Introduction: US global power in the Trump period reflects the continuities and changes which are unfolding rapidly and deeply throughout the world and which are affecting the position of Washington.
Shadow Boxing for Empire: The Mueller Report
04.21.2019By the end of the Obama regime, the US had gone through seven wars and was in the process of losing five of them. Washington was facing global challenges to its dominant economic and political role from Russia and China.
President Trump and the Democratic Congress: The Score Sheet
03.14.2019Going into the third year of President Trump’s presidency, it is necessary to draw a balance sheet on who is winning and/or losing.
US Negotiations: Masters of Defeats
03.08.2019The US is currently engaged in negotiations with at least a dozen countries; which involve fundamental political, military and economic issues. The US has adopted diplomatic strategies in the face of its ‘inability’ to secure military victories. The purpose of adopting a diplomatic approach is to secure through negotiations, in part or fully, goals and advantages unattainable through military means.
Laughter for All (Financial) Times
02.16.2019Introduction: In these times, when the United States pursues an unprecedented military build-up, promotes coups and trade wars, breaks weapons agreements, organizes the illegal seizure of overseas financial accounts, building barriers and walls along the southern border, Washington can count on the mass media to provide a variety of propaganda messages, ranging from the predictable ‘yellow ’ to the sophisticated ‘serious press’.
The New Year Past and Future
12.31.2018Introduction: They year 2018 ended with bitter partisan conflicts over narrow issues. Over seventy percent of the federal budget was approved by both parties and another twenty-nine percent was delayed because of a conflict over ‘border security’ involving expenditures of less than one hundredth of one percent.
US Mass Mobilizations: Wars and Financial Plunder
11.25.2018Introduction: Over the past three decades, the US government has engaged in over a dozen wars, none of which have evoked popular celebrations either before, during or after. Nor did the government succeed in securing popular support in its efforts to confront the economic crises of 2008 – 2009.
President Trump’s Presidency: Results and Perspectives
11.20.2018Introduction: We need an objective evaluation of the President’s foreign and domestic polices – the means, the goals, their results and consequences. The Trump performance requires we discuss the style and substance of foreign and domestic policies.
Big Business Strikes Back: The Class Struggle from Above
10.26.2018Introduction: Bankers, agro-business elites, commercial mega owners, manufacturing, real estate and insurance bosses and their financial advisers, elite members of the ‘ruling class’, have launched a full-scale attack on private and public wage and salary workers,and small and medium size entrepreneurs (the members of the ‘popular classes’). The attack has targeted income ,pensions, medical plans, workplace conditions, job security, rents, mortgages, educational costs, taxation,undermining family and household cohesion.
US War Strategists: Military Defeats and Political Success
09.16.2018Introduction: In a previous article (‘US: The Century of Lost Wars”) I recorded the repeated US military defeats over the past two decades. In this discussion I will describe the role of military strategists who bear responsibility for the US defeats, but also for Israeli political successes.
The US: The Century of Lost Wars
09.09.2018Introduction: Despite having the bigest military budget in the world, five times larger than the next six countries, the largest number of military bases-over 180- in the world and the most expensive military industrial complex, the US has failed to win a single war in the 21st century.
A Decalogue of American Empire-Building: A Dialogue
08.10.2018Introduction: Few, if any, believe what they hear and read from leaders and media publicists. Most people choose to ignore the cacophony of voices, vices and virtues.
President Trump Against the World Order - Teapot in a Tempest?
07.26.2018Introduction: Political leaders, media moguls and journalists have saturated the public throughout the world with claims and accusations that President Trump is destroying the World Order, undermining historic alliances, western values, the world trade organizations and violating national and international constitutions and institutions.
Trump Marches Onward and Downward
07.14.2018Introduction: Journalists, academics, pundits and experts have ignored the complexity of President Trump’s impact on the state of the US Empire. To properly assess the geopolitical configuration of power, we will consider the military, economic, political and diplomatic advances and setbacks of the Trump regime in Latin America, the European Union and Asia (including the Middle East).
Imperial Recovery and Disappearing Workers
05.25.2018Nero played his fiddle, Obama shot baskets and Trump twittered while their empires burned. What makes empire decay and what makes empires expand has everything to do with their relations between rulers and the ruled. Several factors are decisive. These include: (1) rent, land and housing, (2) the direction of living standards, (3) the rise or fall of mortality rate, (4) decline or rise of families.
Imperial Road to Conquest: Peace and Disarmament Agreements
04.30.2018In recent years US imperial strategy has sought to lessen the cost of defeating and overthrowing independent countries.
An Empire Built on Fear at Home and Abroad
04.14.2018Introduction: Political leaders and the mass media deluge the public with a constant stream of frightening incidents caused by the enemy-of-the-week: nerve gas killing dozens of little babies in Syria, Russian-directed poison assassination attempts in England and terror incidents throughout Europe, requiring an increase in domestic police state surveillance and spying. Extensively monitored bank records, intrusive workplace controls, and all personal and, especially, political communications, are in the hands of state security officials or corporate security contractors.
Trump’s Protectionism: A Great Leap Backward
04.02.2018US Presidents, European leaders and their academic spokespeople have attributed China’s growing market shares, trade surpluses and technological power to its “theft” of western technology, “unfair” or non-reciprocal trade and restrictive investment practices.
US Technological Transformations and The Narcotic-fueled Genocide of American Workers
03.28.2018During his recent visit to New Hampshire on 3/20/18, President Trump declared once again that the US is facing a ‘drug epidemic’. This time he advocated the death penalty for criminal drug dealers as the solution to a national crisis that has killed over 1 million Americans since the 1990’s (when the blockbuster prescription opiate Oxycontin was first released on the market).
US Empire: Global Imperialism and Internal Colonialism
03.20.2018Introduction: The dynamic of contemporary US imperialism is built around two structural features: the drive toward global military expansion, conquest and occupation backed by the intensification of exploitation of domestic labor and pillage of the domestic economy.
United States: The Political Economy of Massacres
03.05.2018Every year over 30,000 Americans are killed by gunfire. Every month, in public schoolyards, dance clubs, concert venues, work places and public gatherings, innocent people are slaughtered by assassins wielding legally purchased high powered semi-automatic weapons.
Mapping Trump’s Empire: Assets and Liabilities
02.19.2018The US empire spans the globe; it expands and contracts, according to its ability to secure strategic assets, willing and able to further military and economic power to counter emerging adversaries. The map of empire is a shorthand measure of the vectors, reach and durability of global power and wealth.