https://wng.org/opinions/another-cold-war-1714597247
This typifies the kind of material we have come to expect from Littlejohn - misleading and shallow.
He repeatedly begs the question - from fentanyl to Taiwan, to Nixon's 'failures' and Reagan's 'successes', he seems unaware that these assumptions are easily challenged. He simply assumes Right-wing talking points and then tries to dress it up with the trappings of 'Christian Worldview'.
Does he think America's security state is not characterized by its secrecy? Is he unaware of the myriad books that have been written just since 2001 regarding a state of permanent warfare, the secrecy it engenders, and the impossibility of democracy under such conditions? How many wars is the US engaged in as you read this - and yet the bulk of the public knows nothing of these conflicts. How many countries has America bombed in the last month - and yet almost no one is paying attention. The media won't cover it. The state doesn't have to censor these stories as the corporate media toes the infotainment line. Littlejohn's assertions are frankly ridiculous.
And no one would ever accuse the US of engaging in self-aggrandizing propaganda? Reading this piece I find it difficult to take him seriously.
The story of China's rise is more complicated than he's willing to admit, extends back further than he seems aware, and by no means did awareness begin with Trump. The alarm bells were already ringing back in 2008 with Beijing's 'coming out' party when it hosted the Olympics and awed the world. Obama signalled his desire to 'Pivot to Asia' but was unable to disentangle the US military from the Middle East. And Trump wrecked Obama's programme for economic warfare in the form of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). If Littlejohn wasn't paying attention until Trump came on the stage then he needs to pay closer attention to recent history - especially if he's going to write about them.
By all indications China's aspirations in the early 2000's were limited to regional and historic concerns but that was enough to earn the ire of the American Empire and its extensive satrapies in East Asia - a system who's rectitude and moral standing is simply assumed without question by the likes of Littlejohn. But as Beijing realized it was being obstructed and blocked by the United States and that Washington was working to subvert it from within, the CCP decided to act. It was the working assumption up until the early 2010's that China's internal unrest, instability and expectations of unsustainable economic growth would lead to the collapse of the CCP. The oligarchy reacted and we saw the rise and installation of Xi Jinping. Internal dissent was quashed and like all capitalist nations flush with cash, Beijing began to look for new markets - a case of either neo-imperialism or empire-creep. The debate goes on.
Capitalism not Communism has driven its expansion and like the US it utilizes debt diplomacy and manipulation and is even now beginning to build an empire of satellite states, client kingdoms, satrapies, and even possesses a nascent archipelago of bases. But it has a long way to go if it's going to catch up with and seriously challenge the US Empire. It's clear that Washington intends to bring things to a head long before that point, in part due to the fact that war is viewed by some as a means to counter America's decline, political turmoil, and increasingly volatile economy. Another Trump term is certain to shatter the US system and Atlanticism in particular. As Washington loses control, the US will face a choice - decline into a multipolar order and carve out a niche or pursue war in order to secure the dreams of 'American Century' that were wrecked by the Neo-Conservative faction that dominated the Bush White House and has since moved into the DNC Establishment.
And let it be understood that while the DNC represents decadent identity politics and social libertine-progressivism, when it comes to economics and foreign policy the DNC is more or less where the Republican Party was in the days of Nixon, Ford, and GHW Bush. In other words it has embraced certain Left and pseudo-Left policies on social issues but at its core the party has moved steadily to the Right - while the Right has fallen off a cliff and is lost in a dissonant maelstrom of Libertarian, Fascist, and Nativist idealisms. A multitude of Christian commentators have gotten this completely wrong but I digress.
China's fortitude is still being debated and as with all such questions there are dynamics in play. The Right (including the DNC) may deride 'Zero Covid' policies but they largely worked until the political and economic pressure became too great. Beijing relented and millions died as a result but Littlejohn and his ilk couldn't care less. The Christian Right and the GOP revealed the sham nature of their 'culture of life' and 'pro-life' ethos during the Covid episode as they proved more than willing to watch more than a million Americans die and it's clear these Utilitarian religionists (surely they cannot be called Christian) would have been happy enough if that number had been multiplied several times over as long as they wouldn't have to suffer inconvenience or economic hardship.
Littlejohn evokes Japan and it's Lost Decade(s) which began in 1990 but seems unaware of the US role in fomenting this situation. It's a story of trade balances and currency and the fact that Tokyo was and remains a satrapy of the United States. The US does not directly govern Japan but it's relationship is not one of equals. Washington pressured Japan into embracing economic policies during the 1980's which were meant to benefit Washington and ended up hurting Japan. Remember before everything was 'Made in China' in the 1970's and 80's it was Japan and this generated no small degree of ire as many of us will remember. The US domination of global markets ended in the 1970's especially as its satraps Germany and Japan re-emerged on the world stage as industrial power-houses. And their products were not only cheaper, they were better. The US continues to military occupy these countries and while they encouraged economic prosperity to counter the threat of communism they have more than a few times demanded these nations 'fall on their swords' for US benefit. As Brennus said to the Romans, 'Woe to the conquered'.
It's complicated of course and all blame cannot honestly be placed on the United States but it's something that economists and other geopolitical commentators have been writing about for some time. Like the UK, Japan is attached at the hip to the United States and we saw this in the aftermath of the 2016 election when Shinzo Abe rushed to the United States to meet with president-elect Trump who had indicated that he was going to dispense with the TPP. Japan had heavily invested in this project and built its plans around it. Trump astonished the Japanese Establishment and generated a great deal of anger but I'm sure to no one's surprise. The Japanese have grown used to Washington dealing with them in this way. To peg their economic woes to demographics is reductionist at best and to speak of Japan's growing 'geopolitical irrelevance' indicates Littlejohn doesn't understand Japan's place in the geopolitics of East Asia and its relationship with the United States. Those following recent developments were not surprised to discover that AUKUS is planning to expand and include Japan. Tokyo has a role to play and the US is keen to utilize the nationalists who want to remilitarize the country. This is all in preparation for a coming war with China - one that is being sold to the American public through ignorant and manipulative commentary such as this piece in World Magazine.
Even the framing of 'Russian Aggression' is misleading. Moscow did nothing more than launch a preemptive military campaign in order to defend its security. When Bush did the same in Iraq, the Christian Right accepted and endorsed this bogus line of reasoning - all the justifications for the war turned out to be lies as many of us knew at the time. It was part of a larger geopolitical game that antedated 9/11. Putin is reacting to NATO expansion and attempts to undermine and encircle his country. This is not to say Putin is a nice man, an upright leader, a liberal, or anything of the sort. He is an autocrat in keeping with the Russian tradition. One need not defend him to see that his response up to 2022 was rational and largely constrained. He crossed the line when he invaded Ukraine and yet it was hardly unprovoked. As such the lessons Littlejohn and other commentators such as Albert Mohler wish to extrapolate from this episode are flawed root and branch.
The lessons regarding impending weakness are most applicable to the United States as it watches its domination of the global stage begin to seriously ebb. The Bush plan was to secure a unipolar 21st century but his gross miscalculations accelerated the rise of a multi-polar order. Russia remains a second-tier power with a large nuclear arsenal but its stock has certainly risen from its nadir in the 1990's. NATO and EU projects in the Balkans and Eastern Europe were meant to ensure that Russia would have no place in European geopolitics. The US clearly had designs on securing Central Asia and the Middle East. The plan was for Russia to be degraded and dismantled and its resources exploited - something that is now openly discussed. For Putin and the Russian Establishment this is a narrative and plan they are very familiar with - as it is but a modification of Eastward Expansion policies of the Second and Third Reichs. From Moscow's vantage point the US-dominated Atlanticist Empire (which operates through a multi-faceted power structure which includes but is not limited to organisations such as the G7 and NATO) is but another iteration of these same impulses which have driven European expansion since the Middle Ages. The G8 interlude (1997-2014) represented an attempt to secure Russia by other means. Under Yeltsin it seemed promising but under Putin it became impossible and by 2008 was in serious crisis. The events of 2014 were used as a justification to expel Moscow once and for all.
Littlejohn's call to embrace and win Cold War II is the waving of the same tired militarist banner of the 'Rollback' faction during the first Cold War. These men brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. While the Reagan legend says that he 'defeated' the USSR, the truth is once again far more complicated. And if memory serves it was his embrace of detente that brought the conflict to a near end. His initial militarism had generated one of the three most dangerous epochs of the Cold War - the crisis of 1983. Reagan was by all accounts startled (but perhaps more so by the film 'The Day After') and began to work toward peace. The collapse of the USSR in late 1980's was not so much a 'victory' that Washington could claim as much as it was a collapse of a corrupt and broken system that lacked the wherewithal to survive in the new dynamic, computerized, and global economic environment that was emerging in the 1980's. There is a difference because the 'victory' narrative justifies the Western system but that interpretation can (and should) be challenged.
But none of this nuance markets well and so salesmen-academics like Littlejohn are always given the spotlight and the stage by the monied forces that wish to promote these policies. Whether these types, these stooges for the military-industrial complex and militarist policy are committed ideologues, crusaders, fellow travelers, or useful idiots, or some combination thereof is an open question. For my part the Christian component to this (the fact that it's in World Magazine and Littlejohn's association with The Davenant Institute) is the most troubling of all, for readers will wrongly assume that Biblically-guided wisdom is being dispensed which is not the case. In fact the very framing is not even historically sound or accurate. As such it cannot be Biblical. In addition to making merchandise of God's people, they are liars promoting lies - deceiving and being deceived.