A BOOK REVIEW
As the American people delude themselves once more into thinking of the United States as a liberating force for peace in the world, Washington’s New Cold War invites us, instead, to think for ourselves. Behind the scenes the plans to wage war have been laid—either by proxy, as in Ukraine, or directly, against the U.S.’s old twentieth-century foes. Washington’s New Cold War: A Socialist Perspective makes a strong case that, as the official story is laid out by government propagandists, and as the mainstream media provides cover, the aim of this latest set of American military escapades remains the same as ever: Maintenance of U.S hegemony in the global financial system.
Foregrounded with an introduction by Washington Bullets author Vijay Prashad, this cogent collaboration puts forth three essays that illustrate clearly that, while the Cold War against the Soviet Union ended, the “cold war” against the “enemies” of the United States did not. Furthermore, its authors lay out evidence that the U.S. establishment has been willing to risk nuclear winter—in other words, mutual annihilation—to hold onto economic primacy. And they show that, while Russia and China can each be criticized, justifiably, for their violations of human life and dignity, neither, on its own, threatens the eruption of a Third World War and the end of the human race as we know it. Just in time, we have in our hands an intelligent text that strengthens our struggle against the cynical machinations of the American military behemoth and its propaganda machine.
EXCERPTS:
Who Is Leading the United States to War?
By Deborah Veneziale
In 2019, the prominent neoconservative Robert Kagan co-authored an article with Antony Blinken urging the United States to abandon Trump’s America First policy. They called for the containment (i.e., siege and weakening) of Russia and China and proposed a policy of “preventive diplomacy and deterrence” against America’s adversaries, that is, troops and tanks wherever it is deemed necessary. Incidentally, Kagan’s wife, Victoria Nuland, served as the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs in the Obama administration. Nuland played a key role in organizing and supporting the 2014 color revolution/coup in Ukraine and has boasted about the billions of dollars the United States has spent to “promote democracy” in the country. She is currently serving as undersecretary of state for political affairs in the Biden administration, the third-highest position in the State Department after Secretary Blinken and Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman. She is also a spiritual heir to her mentor, the liberal hawk leader Madeleine Albright.
The hawkish orientation espoused by Kagan and Blinken was taken a step further by NATO’s think tank, the Atlantic Council, which has advocated for nuclear brinkmanship. In February, Matthew Kroenig, the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, argued for the consideration of the U.S.’s preemptive use of “tactical” nuclear weapons.
From this small coterie of warmongers, one can easily detect the deep integration of two elite foreign affairs groups, both of which are the real drivers of the Ukraine crisis. The evolution of this crisis reveals the following set of tactics adopted by this belligerent clique:
strengthening U.S. leadership over NATO, using the military alliance (rather than the UN) as the primary mechanism for foreign intervention;
provoking a so-called adversary to war by refusing to recognize its claim to sovereignty and security over sensitive regions;
planning the use of tactical nuclear weapons and conducting a “limited nuclear war” in or around the so-called adversary’s territory; and
imposing hybrid warfare in order to weaken and subvert the adversary through unilateral coercive measures and combining economic sanctions with financial, informational, propagandistic, and cultural measures along with a color revolution, cyberwarfare, lawfare, and other tactics.
If the desired results are achieved in Ukraine, the same strategy will undoubtedly be replicated in the Western Pacific.
Strategic alignment does not mean that policy elites are not divided on other issues that they deem to be of lesser importance, such as climate change. Even on this matter, however, the United States is demanding that Europe stop importing natural gas from Russia. John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, is noncommittal about the potential negative environmental impacts of such a move, in part because the United States wants to replace Russian gas sales in Europe with its own.
In recent years, progressive forces around the world have launched several international campaigns to voice their concerns about the aggressive global strategy being pursued by the U.S., often using the term “New Cold War.” However, the narratives put forth at times underestimate the depravity of some aspects of current U.S. foreign policy. The “Old Cold War” with the Soviet Union followed certain rules and bottom lines: the United States used a variety of political and economic means to exert pressure and seek to subvert the Soviet state, and the two sides acknowledged one another’s scope of interests and security needs. However, the U.S. did not try to change the national boundaries of nuclear adversaries. This is not the case today, as seen by the Wall Street Journal’s open declaration that the United States should demonstrate its ability to win a nuclear war, a stance which is undergirded by the foreign policy elite’s claim that Ukraine and Taiwan must be protected as they are both strategic locations within the Western military perimeter. Even the Cold War leader Kissinger has expressed concern and opposition to current U.S. foreign policy, arguing that the correct strategy is to divide China and Russia and warning that there will be dangerous consequences if the U.S. directly pursues war against these two nuclear-armed states simultaneously……
Deborah Veneziale is a journalist and editor who has worked in the global supply chain sector for 35 years. She also collaborates as a researcher with Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
She is currently living in Venice, Italy.