America’s Future: A Prosperous, Peaceful Nation, or a Bankrupt, Violent Empire?

The US is at a juncture faced with two choices. It can either manage a transition from global hegemon to a prosperous, peaceful nation working together as equals with all other nations, or it can double down on its continuation as a bankrupt, violent empire seeking continued control over all other nations.

A System Built on Domination

The current US system is predicated on global domination.

The US dollar as the global reserve currency is what has allowed the US to accumulate a multi-trillion-dollar debt and still maintain immense power and wealth not only within its borders but far beyond them.

This resulting hegemony allows the US to set “global norms” regarding global trade, human rights, and the development of and control over key technologies — especially in terms of exercising immense hypocrisy and selective enforcement while doing so.

It has also allowed the US to create a network of what it calls “security guarantees” in which US military forces occupy nations around the globe, from Europe and the Middle East to Southeast and East Asia — predicated in principle on ensuring the security of these “allies,” but in practice simply serving as cover for what the US calls “power projection” — theability of the US to exercise military aggression virtually anywhere on Earth at a moment’s notice.

Often this US “power projection” comes at the cost of the security of nations hosting US troops.

The threat or use of US military aggression around the globe is essential for maintaining the US dollar as the global reserve currency and thus American hegemony overall.

US military aggression serves to degrade or eliminate potential rivals and the alternative financial and monetary systems they inevitably seek to create to work their way out from under subordination to Wall Street and Washington.

This has been US policy spanning decades — including from the end of the Cold War to today.

The growing power of alternative systems across what many call the emerging multipolar world has forced the US to embark on not only unprecedented wars of aggression around the globe, including wars and proxy wars against Venezuela, Russia, Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran, but also unprecedented military spending, with the current US military budget hovering around 1.5 trillion US dollars and growing.

While at face value this appears to be unsustainable and irrational — there are several reasons why the US refuses to adopt a more rational course of policy.

The US military-industrial base is composed of immensely wealthy and influential corporations. The US dominance stemming from the military aggression worldwide they enable helps establish and expand monopolies across other US industries, including big oil, big  agriculture, the auto industry, big pharmaceutical corporations, big tech, and many more.

These industries together serve as the foundation of US economic, military, political, and informational power. Each corporation’s trajectory is guided by shareholder primacy, meaning each and every one of these corporations is required by law to constantly expand profit for its shareholders.

Because perpetual growth is both irrational and unsustainable in a finite world with a finite population and finite resources — this creates structural necessities to constantly expand markets and growth at any cost — including through war, exploitation, predatory lending, and........

© New Eastern Outlook