The essential narrative of the West is built into US national security strategy. The core US idea is that China and Russia are implacable foes that are “attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” These countries are, according to the US, “determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.” (A viewpoint put forward by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs).
The irony is that since 1980 the US has been in at least 15 overseas wars of choice (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Serbia, Syria, and Yemen just to name a few), while China has been in none, and Russia only in one (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union. The US has military bases in 85 countries, China in 3, and Russia in 1 (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org
President Joe Biden has promoted this narrative, declaring that the greatest challenge of our time is the competition with the autocracies. These countries “seek to advance their own power, export and expand their influence around the world, and justify their repressive policies and practices as a more efficient way to address today’s challenges.” US security strategy is not the work of any single US president but of the US security establishment, which is largely autonomous, and operates behind a wall of secrecy.
The unwanted fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts. A generation earlier George W. Bush, Jr. sold the public on the idea that America’s greatest threat was Islamic fundamentalism, without mentioning that it was the CIA, with Saudi Arabia and other countries, that had created, funded, and deployed the jihadists in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere to fight America’s wars against Russia and others.
Consider the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, which was painted in the Western media as an act of unprovoked perfidy. Years later, we know that the Soviet invasion was actually preceded by a CIA operation designed to provoke the Soviet invasion! The same misinformation occurred vis-à-vis Syria. The Western press is filled with recriminations against Putin’s military assistance to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad beginning in 2015. This is without mentioning that the US supported the overthrow of al-Assad beginning in 2011. The CIA funding a major operation (Timber Sycamore) to overthrow Assad years before Russia arrived.
More recently, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recklessly flew to Taiwan despite China’s warnings. The G7 ministers together harshly criticized China’s “overreaction” to Pelosi’s trip.
The Western narrative about the Ukraine war is that it is an unprovoked attack by Putin in the quest to recreate the Russian empire. The real history starts with the Western promise to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not enlarge to the East. Four waves of NATO aggrandizement: in 1999, incorporating three Central European countries; in 2004, incorporating 7 more, including in the Black Sea and Baltic States; in 2008, committing to enlarge to Ukraine and Georgia; and in 2022, inviting four Asia-Pacific leaders to NATO to take aim at China.
The Western media has not mentioned the US role in the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. Also, the failure of the Governments of France and Germany, guarantors of the Minsk II agreement, to press Ukraine to carry out its commitments. The vast US armaments sent to Ukraine during the Trump and Biden Administrations led-up to war. The US refusal to negotiate with Putin over NATO enlargement to Ukraine is not easily understandable.
NATO says its expansion is purely defensive and Putin should have nothing to fear. In other words, Putin should take no notice of the CIA operations in Afghanistan and Syria; the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999; the NATO overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi in 2011; the NATO occupation of Afghanistan for 15 years; nor Biden’s “gaffe” calling for Putin’s ouster; nor US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin stating that the US war aim in Ukraine is the weakening of Russia.
At the core of all of this is the US attempt to remain the world’s single dominant power, by augmenting military alliances around the world to contain or defeat China and Russia. It’s a dangerous, delusional, and outmoded idea. The US has a mere 4.2% of the world’s population, and now a 16% of world’s GDP (measured at international prices). In fact, the combined GDP of the G7 is now less than that of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), while the G7 population is just 6 percent of the world compared with 41 percent in the BRICS.
There is only one country whose self-declared fantasy is to be the world’s dominant power- the US. It’s past time that the US recognized the true sources of security: internal social cohesion; responsible cooperation with the rest of the world; and economic cooperation for the good of all. On this basis, the US and its allies could avoid war with China and Russia, and enable the world to face its myriad environment, energy, food and social crises. This will reduce disparities and promote peace.
Encirclement and containment are old strategies of the 20th century – the era of the Cold War. The world has moved on but the US is still stuck in some retro show of its own making.
Reference:
The West’s false narrative about Russia and China, www.jeffsachs.org
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