The Rules
of the (Trump) Game
By Pepe
Escobar
December
05, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
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"Sputnik"
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Gen. James
"Mad Dog" Mattis, chosen by President-elect Donald
Trump to be the new head of the Pentagon, is a model
functionary of the Empire of Chaos.
His call sign is what else "chaos". The Marine
Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC) even
shared his regular accolade; "Saint Mattis of
Quantico, Patron Saint of Chaos". The Saint in his
pop incarnation comes fully equipped with a grenade
and a knife.
Mad Dog may
indeed be seen by the real world as, well, a mad
dog; he was on the front line of the 2001 assault
on Afghanistan; led the Marine assault on Baghdad
during Shock and Awe in 2003; and masterminded the
horrendous American destruction of Fallujah in late
2004. Widely hailed as a fine strategist, he retired
as chief of CENTCOM in 2013.
The Saint
may have been a purveyor of chaos across the Cheney
regime-coined "Greater Middle East" something that
came with inevitable collateral damage; his creeping
Iranophobia. Yet the key to his appointment is that
it will focus on rebuilding the US military.
William
Hartung, at the Center for International Policy,
A Pentagon Rising: Is a Trump Presidency Good News
for the Military-Industrial Complex? notes how
"Pentagon spending is one of the worst possible ways
of creating jobs. Much of the money goes to service
contractors, arms industry executives, and defense
consultants (also known as 'Beltway bandits')."
Moreover, "such spending is the definition of an
economic dead end."
Criticizing
Trumponomics as "Reaganomics on steroids" and that
includes vast military spending Hartung stresses
that if Donald Trump really wants to create jobs,
"he should obviously pursue infrastructure
investment rather than dumping vast sums
into weapons the country doesn't actually need
at prices it can't afford."
To rebuild
the appalling US infrastructure is one of the top
Trump campaign promises.
What is to be done?
My aim with
this column was to launch a debate on the
possible Leninist role of White House strategist
Steve Bannon. Trump, like all US presidents, is
obviously no Leninist. But his chief strategist does
cultivate the Leninist notion of a proletariat
vanguard; call it the Angry Older White American
Blue Collar Male contingent; call it haters
of identity liberalism, which elevated selected
minorities to the status of sacred victims; or call
it simply "deplorables".
It's this
proletariat vanguard that Bannon aims to cultivate,
so they lead / influence / shape policy for the
foreseeable US political future, winning election
after election for Republicans. They must
imperatively benefit from Trump's spun-to-death
fight against neoliberal "free" trade, although it's
not clear exactly how he will privilege
"in-sourcing" and not outsourcing which is
official US corporate policy. They certainly won't
benefit from a massive rebuilding of the Pentagon.
German
political analyst Peter Spengler introduces a
further spanner in the works, noting how Bannon,
"like all scholars (or students for that matter)
of Russia/Bolshevism has ignored what
Kurt Riezler could have and (would want to)
unearth to them in his time in exile in New York:
first-hand experience and knowledge about the
continuum of subterraneous and subversive
'diplomacy' between Germany and Russia" in the
run-up towards the October Revolution.
Bets are
still off on what "subversive" diplomacy the Trump
era will entail apart from a 21st century remix
of the Kissinger-orchestrated "Nixon in China"
moment. That would take the form of a "Trump
in Russia-China" moment as in Washington starting
to normalize the treatment of those nations the
Pentagon ranks as its top two "existential threats",
global projection and spheres of influence included.
That
contentious phone
call to Trump "initiated" by Taiwan President
Tsai Ing-wen certainly didn't contribute to any
normalization. And no one should expect that the
Brzezinski-conceptualized US global primacy,
especially over Eurasia as in "prevent the
emergence of peer competitors" will simply fade
away.
Pentagon reborn
William
Engdahl
argues that the Brave New (Trump) World is all
an elaborate deception. A quick look at the lucky
few chosen for Trump's plutocrat cabinet does not
exactly match the Better Angels of our Nature.
A New York
business source, familiar with the Masters of the
Universe, who actively supported the Trump program
and called his election at least two weeks
before the fact, offers a blunt assessment:
"Donald is an
insider. Most of the advisors Engdahl refers to are
wallpaper. There are three important things
to consider. 1) The Supreme Court will have
conservative judges. 2) There will be a
rapprochement with Russia. The tilt may not be
as warm to China, but we will work on that. 3) None
of the Masters care about Lenin, or Thomas Cromwell,
or ideologies. They care about power and money."
As for a
possible Leninist White House, "if we want to quote
Lenin, it is that truth is whatever advances the
class struggle. Truth to the Masters is whatever
advances their agenda. If they want the Federal
Reserve to expand credit, then they look for a
liberal if that works, or a conservative, or
monetarist, or Keynesian, etc. One of them will
support expansion of credit and those that don't
will be shunted aside. They don't care about Milton
Friedman, Keynes, Marx or Lenin. It is what works
for them that counts. Hillary did not work so she is
out. And Bannon will do what he is told like the
rest of them. And if he gets in the way, he will be
fired."
So no
matter what California
screams and shouts, this is the stark way the
Masters will be running Trumpland.
Which
brings us, once again, to the rebuilding of the US
military. Another business/investment source, who
also actively supported the Trump economic plan
during the campaign, stresses how "the present power
of the Russian military industrial complex is
greater than the US in many senses. And all of it is
in Russia whereas most of that of the US is farmed
out to Asia."
Thus, "it is
fortunate that Trump has come in as President
to wind down this mad house that they call
Washington. There is a consensus above the President
that action must be done to rebuild the United
States military on an emergency basis." And that
will be the Mad Dog's top brief.
The source
adds: "One easy way of repatriating all this
industry at once is to set all defense contracts
up with the stipulation that the entire plane,
missile or tank must be made in the United States,
thus requiring the massive repatriation of jobs and
factories. That should be the first order
of business at the White House under Trump as it
does not require a tariff, or ending currency
rigging."
Hold on, Yalta, we're coming
Meanwhile,
there's got to be some careful management of what
the disgruntled neocon/neoliberalcon galaxy called
the Trump-Putin "bromance".
Trump will
most certainly re-normalize Russia and work
alongside Russia to smash the Salafi-jihadi dementia
in Syria; the problem is to what degree Russia and
China will be able to influence Trumpland not
to turn Iran into high collateral damage.
Russia-China-Iran is the key alliance invested
in Eurasia integration.
"Grand
Chessboard" Brzezinski cannot help himself
from expounding the usual narcissistic absurdities,
as in
suggesting the US helps Russia to "transit
effectively" and become a "constructive, significant
member of the global community" (it's rather Moscow
that may end up doing exactly that to Trump's
America).
At the same
time, it's no wonder even Brzezinski himself is now
spinning, "America is needed to pull together some
larger coalition that can deal with global problems.
And in that larger coalition America, China and
changing Russia could be preeminent."
"Changing"
Russia in this case is code for a Russia that can be
seduced, tamed and driven away from China. The key
context; the Russia-China strategic partnership
essentially points towards Eurasia as a vast,
integrated emporium the blending of China's One
Belt, One Road (OBOR) with Russia's Eurasia Economic
Union (EEU).
Brzezinski,
reflecting and/or influencing neoliberalcon
"values", would rather reenact Divide and Rule and
try to split Russia from China while at the same
time suggesting that Trump can't afford to be left
out of the massive (Eurasia) action; there's gotta
be some sort of deal. Stay tuned for the terms of a
possible upgrade; from Yalta in 1945 to
a Yalta
remix in 2017?
