U.S. Aggressiveness Will Accelerate Its Demise

By Moon Of Alabama

March 20, 2021 "Information Clearing House" - - "Moon Of Alabama" -The foreign policy of the current U.S. administration is exactly the same as the foreign policy of the previous one. In short: disastrous.

There are dozens of examples: The "maximum pressure' campaign against Iran continues, the sanctions on Venezuela will be upheld or even strengthened, the bombing of Syria, no change on Yemen and so on.

The problem is that none of these 'we are tough guys' policies achieves any purpose.

From the outside world the behavior and tough talk of U.S. officials is seen as juvenile. It demonstrates a  lack of knowledge, wisdom and strategy.

Consider these recent headlines about China:

• Blinken Rallies ‘Quad’ Democracies to Counter Assertive China - February 17, Bloomberg
• Blinken warns China against 'coercion and aggression' - March 16, Reuters
• Blinken denounces China's 'strings attached' vaccine diplomacy - March 17, Nikkei
• U.S. sanctions 24 Hong Kong and Chinese officials ahead of Blinken's key meeting - March 17, AP
• Bolstered by allies, Biden officials take blunt message to first China talks - March 17, AP

> The United States will take an uncompromising stance in talks with China on Thursday in Alaska, officials have said, in the first face-to-face meetings between senior officials from the two rivals since U.S. President Joe Biden took office.

Beijing has called for a reset to ties, now at their lowest in decades, but Washington has said the Alaska talks will be a one-off, and any future engagement depends on China improving its behavior. <

Then, after days of badmouthing China, it finally dawned on Blinken that he needs China's help.

• Blinken urges China to convince North Korea to denuclearize - March 18, AP
• China must persuade North Korea to give up nuclear weapons, says Blinken - March 18, Guardian

Why, after so many bad words towards it, would China help the U.S. with solving the North Korea problem? It has zero incentive to do so.

The same aggressive behavior can be seen with regards to Russia. Baseless accusations of Russian election interferences are followed with more sanctions and threats topped off with Biden calling Russia's President Putin a 'killer'. As the Canadian Russia expert Paul Robinson writes:

As for Biden’s comments, well what can one say? Didn’t he just order the bombing of Syria. Doesn’t that make him a ‘killer’ too? Politicians should avoid this sort of language. I suspect, though, that what this and the intelligence report mentioned above indicate is that Russiagate, with its allegations of Trump-Putin collusion to undermine American democracy, has done irreparable damage to US-Russia relations. One gets the impression that there is now a deep, deep hatred of Russia within the US government, a hatred that prevents any sane analysis of Russian intentions and actions, as well as of US national interests. I fear that this will last for quite a long time.

Andrei Martyanov adds:

[The] degradation of the American political institutions, top-bottom, and its speed are mind-boggling. As for the class and culture--US political elite and US media machine don't have any. Biden merely confirmed it today.
...
One Russian saying posits that one can still negotiate with scoundrels, one cannot negotiate with idiots. When the opposite side is both, boy, talk about the United States turning into the third world country.

The hostility the U.S., by its behavior and words, creates against itself is not restricted to Russia and China.

Last week the French "Armed Forces Joint Reflection Circle" CRI, an independent think tank of former generals and high officers of the French forces, issued an open letter to NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg in which it accused him of having acting solely in the interest of the U.S. during the development of his NATO 2030 plan.

The letter details how Stoltenberg, NATO and the U.S. have caused the bad relations with Russia. It says that the U.S. is trying use a fictional 'Russian threat' to pressure NATO countries into morphing into a global force, under U.S. command and independent of the United Nations, to then use it against China. This while the real threat to Europe is Islamic terrorism caused by the U.S. interferences in the Middle East and north Africa. The U.S. led NATO is thereby becoming a danger for Europe.

The accusations the French generals are launching against the U.S. go beyond anything one might hear from Moscow or Beijing.

The next 'allied' nation that will have sound reason to turn hostile towards the U.S. might well be Germany:

The Biden administration Thursday stepped up its rhetoric against a gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, calling on all those involved in the project to “immediately abandon” their work.

“The Department reiterates its warning that any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks US sanctions and should immediately abandon work on the pipeline,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Nord Stream 2 is of vital importance to Germany's energy security. The German public was rather hostile to President Trump and Biden's victory was seen with relief. But when it sees how Biden pursues the same policies, and with a similar tone, it will turn on him. A more general 'anti-Americanism' would then arise.

The uncompromising and ever aggressive behavior the U.S. shows towards competitors as well as friends will not lead to a stronger U.S. position in the world. People and nations will learn to work around it.

These rushed attempts to prevent the ending of its unipolar moment will only accelerate the move towards a new multilateral global system.

U.S. Aggressiveness Follow Up

The 'western' media reporting of the spat between Biden and Putin is typically bad.

The Guardian @guardian - 18:15 UTC · Mar 18, 2021

'Takes one to know one': Putin-Biden spat escalates over 'killer' accusation

That was not what Putin had said:

Ivan Pentchoukov @IvanPentchoukov - 16:56 UTC · Mar 19, 2021

Can't believe how many outlets are running with the same totally false translation of what Putin said.

The idiom Putin used is much closer to "the names you call others is what you should be called."

The official Kremlin transcript agrees with Ivan's formulation:

[D]ifficult, dramatic, and bloody events abound in the history of every nation and every state. But when we evaluate other people, or even other states and nations, we are always facing a mirror, we always see ourselves in the reflection, because we project our inner selves onto the other person.

You know, I remember when we were children and played in the yard, we had arguments occasionally and we used to say: whatever you call me is what you are called yourself. This is no coincidence or just a kids’ saying or joke. It has a very deep psychological undercurrent. We always see ourselves in another person and think that he or she is just like us, and evaluate the other person’s actions based on our own outlook on life.

There is an additional passage of interest which sets out rules for future talks that I have not seen reported in 'western' media:

I know that the United States and its leaders are determined to maintain certain relations with us, but on matters that are of interest to the United States and on its terms. Even though they believe we are just like them, we are different. We have a different genetic, cultural and moral code. But we know how to uphold our interests. We will work with the United States, but in the areas that we are interested in and on terms that we believe are beneficial to us. They will have to reckon with it despite their attempts to stop our development, despite the sanctions and insults. They will have to reckon with this.

We, with our national interests in mind, will promote our relations with all countries, including the United States.

Secretary of State Blinken's meeting with the Chinese foreign minister in a shabby Alaskan hotel was another diplomatic train wreck:

“The alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right and winner takes all and that would be a far more violent and unstable world,” Blinken said.

The 'rules based order' means 'do what we say' and is of course unacceptable. Here is how the Chinese replied:

What China and the international community follow or uphold is the United Nations-centered international system and the international order underpinned by international law, not what is advocated by a small number of countries of the so-called “rules-based” international order.

and

I don’t think the overwhelming majority of countries in the world would recognize that the universal values advocated by the United States or that the opinion of the United States could represent international public opinion, and those countries would not recognize that the rules made by a small number of people would serve as the basis for the international order.

When Yang was chided by Blinken for making a too long opening statement in response to Blinken's accusations Yang replied:

The Chinese side felt compelled to make this speech because of the tone of the U.S. side.

Well, isn’t this the intention of United States, judging from what – or the way that you have made your opening remarks, that it wants to speak to China in a condescending way from a position of strength?

So was this carefully all planned and was it carefully orchestrated with all the preparations in place? Is that the way that you had hoped to conduct this dialogue?

Well, I think we thought too well of the United States. We thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols. So for China it was necessary that we made our position clear.

So let me say here that, in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. The U.S. side was not even qualified to say such things even 20 years or 30 years back, because this is not the way to deal with the Chinese people. If the United States wants to deal properly with the Chinese side, then let’s follow the necessary protocols and do things the right way.

And this which was apparently left out of State Departments transcript:

History will prove that if you use cutthroat competition to suppress China you will be the one to suffer in the end.

The attempted U.S. assault was a home run for the Chinese side:

Many netizens on China’s social media said Chinese officials were doing a good job in Alaska, and that the U.S. side lacked sincerity.

Some even characterized the talks as a “Hongmen Banquet”, referring to an event that took place 2,000 years ago where a rebel leader invited another to a feast with the intention of murdering him.

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