This was a good and insightful interview with much to
consider. Kovalik's 'The Plot to Scapegoat Russia' caught my eye a few years
ago. Kovalik is one of the few voices on the Left that's critical of the
Democratic Party and its increasingly hysterical Anti-Russia campaign. This
conversation is wide-ranging and touches on several important issues, ones critical
to understand if we're to navigate the present situation and filter the many
voices that seek to dominate our thinking.
Here are some additional comments to supplement his answers
to the CounterPunch questions:
Q. The Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists has recently put the hands of the Doomsday Clock to
100 seconds before midnight. Midnight means all out war, probably nuclear
holocaust. This is the closest it has ever been. Do you agree with this dire
assessment?
Kovalik is correct in noting that the risk of nuclear war is
greater today than it was in the Cold War. Israel is part of that equation to
be sure but the Anti-Russia campaign is also pushing the world toward so-called
'doomsday'. The relationship between Washington and Moscow is at a particularly
low point and all the mechanisms developed during the last twenty years of the
Cold War have been largely and unilaterally dismantled by the Bush, Obama, and
Trump administrations. The world is far more unstable and given the fact that
nations like India and Pakistan could easily slip into nuclear war, or given
the situation on the Korean peninsula, or the real threat of war between China
and the United States – there are many nuclear scenarios that demand serious
consideration.
As Christians we do not fear these wars or the rumours of war
but we're also to be vigilant so that we know when to 'flee to the mountains'
as it were. A lack of fear is not tantamount to ignoring events.
Q. The U.S. always portrays itself as
the greatest force on the planet for peace, justice, human rights, racial
equality, etc. Polls tell us that most other nations actually regard the U.S.
as the greatest threat to stability. What in your view is the truth here?
It's critical to understand that the US metanarrative is
rooted in lies and hypocrisy. The US does not represent human rights but wealth
and power and it is an empire eager to employ violence in order to project that
power and secure it. The US propaganda machine is powerful and effective. While
domestic freedoms have been curtailed over the past twenty years, in many cases
the capitalist system has pursued this policy through manipulation – people
willingly surrender their freedoms, data, and privacy in the name of security,
access, and wealth. They also look the other way and refuse to entertain
serious questions about the US system and how it functions in the wider world.
Authoritarian states punish those who ask the questions. Few
in the US even consider asking them – such is the powerful and seductive nature
of the US system. Those that do are largely ignored. Those that aggressively
pursue the issue are quietly blacklisted. There's a type of freedom at work in
US society but the system itself is so powerful that the voices of true dissent
are overwhelmed by silence. It's fascinating the way the US system operates and
yet at the same time the seeming easy-going latitudinarian attitude of the
Establishment changes outside the domestic sphere. Washington (and Wall Street)
are quick to act in quarters of the empire that lie outside the United States
itself. American power is predicated on exploitation and it's more than willing
to ally with and rely upon brutal proxies to meet its goals. Brutal is hardly
too strong an adjective to describe the nature and projection of US power. The
truth is the US is (at present) the greatest force for violence in the world, a
true rogue state, in many ways the exact opposite of what it purports to be. It
has broken and decimated whole societies and its true death toll is in the
millions, exceeded only by some of the most atrocious regimes in history.
Q. Here’s a
chicken-or-egg question: The U.S. accuses both Russia and China of rapidly
expanding their military capabilities, claiming its own posturing and increase
in weaponry is a response to its hostile adversaries, Russia and China. Both
Russia and China claim they are merely responding to intimidation and military
threats posed by the U.S. What’s your view? Do Russia and China have imperial
ambitions or are they just trying to defend themselves against what they see as
an increasingly aggressive U.S. military?
Russia and China have their own ambitions. Russia's are
regional and rooted in historical concerns and claims. There's also a great
deal of bitterness about what happened in the aftermath of the Cold War. The
Gorbachev and Yeltsin cliques thought they had found a friend and partner in
the United States and instead they learned that they were being used and
betrayed. Russia was almost conquered and its recovery under Putin has been an
attempt to rollback US gains in the aftermath of 1991 and return Russia to its
historical place and (this is important) secure that position from further
domination and encroachment – which are also viewed through the lens of history.
The story with China is a bit more complicated. The nation is
in possession of a tortured narrative. Mao was the hero that freed China from a
century of subjugation and oppression at the hands of foreign powers – the
West, and Japan.
But Mao's rule was a disaster that almost destroyed the
nation. And yet the CCP relies on the Maoist narrative in order to retain
legitimacy. Otherwise who are they? They have no mandate. They have not been
elected or chosen by anyone. And yet the elephant in the room is that Mao and
all he stood for have been disowned. Xi Jinping has attempted to reverse that
narrative in recent years but he's taken Chinese policies in directions Mao
would not have imagined.
After the death of Mao in 1976, Beijing embraced capitalism
and by the late 1990's stood poised to become a serious regional power – ready
to resume its historical standing in East Asia. To call its rise meteoric would
be an understatement.
By the 2010's, China had become the second biggest economy in
the world and its vast wealth needed to be invested, and its energy directed
lest it be squandered and depreciate. The accession of Xi Jinping in 2012
marked a serious change as he began to project China's power outward, beyond
East Asia and across the entirety of the Afro-Eurasian World Island. China's
wealth (for this is the nature of wealth in a capitalist context) drove the
nation to invest in other countries, in infrastructure and trade and within a
short time it became clear that Beijing would need to defend its interests and
even now a new era of geopolitical engagement and military expansion is
emerging – a nascent Chinese Empire. Xi realised that conflict with Washington
was inevitable as China could not continue to expand without coming into
conflict with the post-WWII Washington-imposed order – America's Empire in
Asia.
The US has acknowledged this new reality. The War on Terror
has quietly ended and now the US is engaged in Great Powers Conflict – or Cold
War II, a clash of empires. The US stance toward Beijing and Moscow has turned
hostile and now these nations are effectively turning into the very bogeymen
the US has depicted. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy but one obscured and
distorted by Western media. As the US has pursued aggressive policies these
nations have responded and yet their responses are cast as villainous
aggressions. Cast as villains, Moscow and Beijing no longer care how they're
perceived and now pursue policies in keeping with their own interests – which in
recent years are becoming aggressive. This is largely due to various geopolitical,
market, and resource based issues coming to a head. Diplomacy is becoming pointless
and so the game has been dispensed with. It's tantamount to a state of
undeclared war.
Q. The U.S.
always denies that it has imperial ambitions. Most unbiased experts say that by
any objective standards, the U.S. is an empire — indeed the most powerful,
sprawling empire in history. Does the U.S. have to be an empire to be
successful in the world and effectively protect and serve its citizenry?
Q. The highest
ranking commanders of the U.S. military recently sounded the alarm. They have
concluded that the U.S. — widely regarded as the most formidable military power
in history — can’t defeat either Russia or China in a war. These military
commanders are saying we need to dramatically increase our military capabilities.
What do you make of this claim and the resulting demand for more DOD spending?
The US is certainly the most massive and militaristic empire
in the history of mankind – at least apart from 'flash in the pan'
manifestations such as Nazi Germany.
And Kovalik is right, the US is on the verge of implosion.
The cost of maintaining the empire is breaking the system – a point Moscow and
Beijing know all too well, a point they would exploit as much as they possibly
can. They cannot win in a military conflict. Their best bet is for the US to
collapse, a once unthinkable prospect but one that is starting to feel very
real.
The US Establishment has been in denial over these realities
and the propagandists for Empire both in the political sphere and even in the state-worshiping
nationalist Church, have promoted false narratives that continue to blind the
public as to the nature of what US power is, how it is maintained, and how it
is threatened. And no, the Empire is not necessary to maintain US security. In
fact US policy makes America and its people less secure, something the mantra-chanting
brainwashed public doesn't understand. Soldiers are not defending America's
freedom, an absurd notion. The American citizenry doesn't need hundreds of
bases around the world and the biggest military machine in history to be safe.
No, what the military does is expand power and it necessarily generates strife.
The soldiers are not defending America but their presence threatens others and
enforces America's will – which will is largely that of Wall Street and
American capital. The soldiers create conditions for cheap goods and America's
decadent wealth, but it has nothing to do with freedom. Many countries are free
and yet do not possess empires.
Militarism and imperialism demand secrecy and the massive
security apparatus that emerged long ago reached a point in which any pretense
of democracy is undermined and subordinated. The outward trappings and rituals
exist as a form of theatre but the Mandarins and Praetorians carry on, running
the empire and making it function.
And yet the empire is splintering into factions, crumbling from within and is in grave danger. For some of the elite, including those within the military-security apparatus, war is the only and best option. War unifies the state, rallies and invests the public in the project, and can drive an economy all its own. And while the US faces real rivalries and threats on the international stage, the prospect of war is daunting and risky – for easy victory is not on the table and pursuing war is a gamble. It might 'save' the empire, but it almost might bring it down.