Not the Biggest Kid on Every Block, by Robert Gore

In 1823, President James Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams promulgated what later came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine. It was a statement to the European powers: the US pledged not to disturb existing European colonies in North and South America, or to intervene in European affairs, but from then on, the Americas were to be recognized as the US’s sphere of influence; any further attempts by the Europeans to colonize would be regarded as acts of aggression. While the US made its sphere of influence into a sphere of domination, the Monroe Doctrine was a realpolitik pillar of American policy until at least WWI, when the US intervened in European affairs in a big way, which set the stage for WWII, when the US intervened in an even bigger way.

One of the unfortunate consequences of WWII was that it left the US as the world’s preeminent power. It was the leader of the victorious alliance; it had developed and used the atomic bomb; other than the Pearl Harbor attack its territory had not been invaded; its industrial infrastructure, the world’s most productive, was intact; it had suffered comparatively few casualties, and with the Bretton Woods agreement and the establishment of the United Nations, it essentially dictated the ground rules for much of the emergent economic, financial, and political order. While the US would continue to insist on its Monroe Doctrine sphere of influence in the Americas, it laid claim to a sphere of influence encompassing the rest of the world, too. As it had with North and South America, US influence came to mean domination in the minds of US policymakers (the US has 800 military bases in foreign countries).

While there has been no formal document or doctrine, nuclear powers Russia and China have served notice that they intend to exercise control over territory they regard as their sphere of influence, what Sir Halford Mackinder’s brilliant analysis (1904) termed Euro-Asia (“Washington’s Great Game and Why It’s Failing,” by Tom Englehardt and Alfred McCoy, SLL, 6/8/15). As SLL recently noted, “Vladimir Putin has deftly illuminated the dissembling behind US policy in Syria” (“Lies, Damnable Lies, and Syria,” SLL, 9/19/15).

By aiding Syria’s President Assad, a long-time ally, and inviting the US to join Russia and Iran in the fight against ISIS, Putin has exposed US pretense in Syria: waging “limited” war against ISIS when in fact the true aim has been to depose Assad, a goal the US shares with Saudi Arabia, the Sunni Gulf Coast states, Turkey, and Israel. There are even indications, not yet confirmed, that China may join Russia and Iran in Syria, and Russia has reached an agreement with Iraq to provide intelligence assistance in its fight against ISIS. In one masterstroke, Putin has put the final nail into the US’s hubristic vision of global domination. How many more disasters will it take before the US recognizes the new reality?

The US faces a decision in Syria that is a microcosm of the one it faces for its entire foreign policy. The US can put the best face on things and join with Russia to eradicate ISIS, a stated aim of US foreign and military policy. The price will be Assad staying on as Syrian head of state and acceptance of the Minsk agreement status quo in Ukraine. The US will also have to swallow its pride. If the joint effort is successful—the odds-on-favorite bet, especially if China joins it—Putin, not the US, will get the credit for “straightening out” the Syrian situation. If the refugee flow appreciably slows, he will also earn the gratitude of Europe, which would be another incremental victory in his effort to wrest it from the US orbit.

True growth often entails the ingestion of humble pie. Tacitly, at least, the US will have to recognize that it can no longer be the biggest kid on every block. That might initiate a rediscovery of its Monroe Doctrine noninterventionist legacy. The US will be a major power, dominant in its New World sphere of influence, for many decades, perhaps centuries, but there will be other major powers, dominant in their spheres of influence. Future competition will be in terms of commercial, industrial, and financial prowess, trade, and ideological appeal. These used to be the US’s home field advantages and can be, once again.

Or the US can blunder on with its incoherent, counterproductive policies and wars. The unipolar dream should have died with the Vietnam war, but it was resurrected with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The specious war on terrorism is the latest excuse for the US’s globe-encompassing remit. It’s easy enough to take down tin horn dictators like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, but the blowback—spreading terrorism and a flood of refugees—has steadily escalated and now we’re bumping into Russia and perhaps China, definitely not the junior varsity.

Before he was elected President Obama expressed some skepticism towards Pax Americana. Coming from the promisor of $2500 in insurance savings and keeping your medical plan and doctor, that skepticism was probably just another lie to solidify support among his party’s dwindling antiwar wing. Whatever his true feelings, Obama is now just as captured by the neoconservatives and the military-industrial-intelligence complex as his predecessors. Syria brings out Obama’s dithering and dissembling worst. If he does decide to play ball with Putin, the complex will regard it as a tactical retreat, not a sea change, and will do everything in its power to keep the flickering flame of global empire lit. There is too much money and power at stake to let it die.

Putin understands what they do not: while the power exists to destroy the world, that same power prevents any nation from ruling it. Unfortunately, delusion about the latter could lead to the former.

THEY DO WRITE ‘EM LIKE THAT ANYMORE.

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