Kicking the deep state off the US land (The U.S. in 20th/21st c., Part 3)

Foreign Policy has published this week an article by Andrew Foxall titled ‘Kicking Putin off the Island’ that I found typical of doublethink. [1] 

(Image source)

Doublethink is shortly characterized by an inversion of logic. The victim is targeted as being the aggressor, etc. It is easy to replace things in the correct order when you know that. This is thus what I’ve decided to perform with Foxall’s article, keeping as much as possible close to the original sentences for demonstration purpose, and updating links.
A second factor was the relevant mention of the central role of the civil society in the liberation process, what I called in French “peupler l’espoir” in a footnote of the previous part of this serie ('The inevitable counter-revolution of the American people'). P.D. Scott has written about this role too.[1b]

I’ve chosen to not simply replace the name Putin by Obama in the original text because the U.S. political context is much more complex: Obama is the world’s loneliest leader, isolated and surrounded by stupidity. He is the consenting prisoner of the U.S. deep state. 

The only order that is really worth anything does not come through the enforcement [...] of law, it comes through the establishment of a society which is just and in which harmonious relationships are established and in which you need a minimum of regulation to create decent sets of arrangements among people. But the order based on law and on the force of law is the order of the totalitarian state, and it inevitably leads either to total injustice or to rebellion-eventually. 

"The Problem is Civil Obedience", Howard Zinn (May 5, 1970) 

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Kicking the deep state off the U.S. land

The United States of America after Obama don't need to be ruled by the deep state, and driving a wedge between the president and his craven inner circle is the first step. 

By BRUNO PAUL, Dr. 

The deep state has directly or indirectly ruled the U.S. since 1963. And, after 50 years in power, there are few signs that he will abdicate his position anytime soon. Using the voice of Hillary Clinton, the deep state has stated it may seek re-election in 2016, meaning he would rule until 2020 -- by which time it will rule since 57 years. 

No tyranny, however, lasts forever -- Hitler's 1,000-year Reich lasted all of 12 years -- and it is in this context that we should view the deep state's rule. Its power is not what it once was: The social contract it implicitly built with the American people in his earlier years -- he could do whatever he liked, as long as life improved for many of them -- is broken. High rates of economic growth are long gone, and so too is the increasing standard of living that they provided. Americans are becoming restless and, although the opposition congressmen as a whole are cowed and quiet (with a very few exceptions), opposition movement have performed well in recent election polls. The deep state resorted to destabilizing Ukraine (at least, in part) to boost its falling approval ratings, which are now record low. 

While many U.S.-watchers cannot imagine the country without the deep state at the helm, it's time for leaders to start. In confronting a moribund, revanchist transnational deep state, the world must have a clear vision of the ideal post-deep state America. 

In a lot of ways, Obama was an unlikely president. As the first African-American President of the United States, his race and culture have played a prominent role in this, both positively and negatively. His relative youth (47 when elected) has alternately resulted in his being praised for his freshness and criticized for his inexperience. His temperament and demeanor have drawn praise for his perceived unflappability and criticism for the perception of his lacking emotional attachment. [2] When G.W. Bush stepped down on January 2009, Obama became acting president. One of his first acts was to order the first two Predator airstrikes of his presidency in Pakistan. The Guardian described the deep state recently as having "brought darkness to America," but, driven and certain of his own staying power, it ascended without hesitation. It hasn't looked back since its inception. 

Since decades, the deep state has fostered a grotesquely decayed, corrupt, illiberal system that constrains democracy, centralizes all power, curtails media freedoms, reins in the judiciary, restricts civil liberties, and treads on human rights. Outside of U.S., the regime carries out extrajudicial murder, engages in the arbitrary use of force, and promotes Washington interests with utter disregard for international norms. 

It wasn't always this way. 

Up to 1963, the U.S. had the potential to develop along a liberal-democratic path. The country was a multiparty democracy in which officials were chosen in regular elections; its fledgling economy was based on markets and private property, and its media independent and pluralistic. Starting 1989, the Russian military withdrew peacefully from Eastern Europe and the Soviet successor states, pursued cooperation with the West on nuclear disarmament, although Russia was forced to accept the expansion of NATO. To be sure, serious issues remained (not the least of which, U.S. deep state above the legal system and its pervasive nature of organized crime), but the country was headed in a promising direction when its government strongly reduced deficits and curbed debt. U.S. President Bill Clinton described this period as "a time of real possibility and opportunity." 

Except with the visible growing inequality, nowhere is the deep state's impact on U.S. as visible as in the country's political sphere. Since the 1963 parliamentary elections - the last before JFK was killed – the two parties are increasingly polarized. In the most recent parliamentary elections, in 2013, polarization in the House and Senate is at the highest level since the end of Reconstruction. 

Since the ‘Halloween Massacre’ in November 1975, the deep state assembled an inner circle of individuals that would assist the top executives in building a "new" USA. Although the faces have changed over the years, many remain the same, or share the same ideology of Christian Reconstructionism. 

Pr. P.D. Scott has described this inner circle consists of linked groups of people. It is a cohort of individuals who control key sectors of U.S. kleptocratic economy and its brutal security services, but who've never felt the heat of sanctions over U.S. actions in foreign countries -- something European Court of Human Rights has called a "cruel and inhuman treatment." By targeting these individuals in this inner circle, the world would drive a wedge between the deep state and his closest allies. But it can do more to weaken his standing. 

Sanctions should become the status quo, and they should go further than visa bans and asset freezes, to include asset seizures. Given the choice between siding with the deep state and protecting some of their vast wealth stored in others capitals and financial centers, enough of them will go with the latter. 

The friction and resentment that this creates will demonstrate the growing fissures within the deep state -- over what is needed to improve U.S. economy, what direction the country is headed, and whether international isolation is sensible -- and may even lead to U.S. citizens deciding the country needs new leadership. This would make clear to the next generation of politicians, policymakers, and businessmen that being associated with the deep state and his system comes with a price. 

If the world is going to uproot the deep state, it must remember that past successes employed more subtle strategic campaigns. The West likes to say to have won the Cold War because of the superiority of capitalism over Soviet communism, but one of the most subversive -- and effective -- acts it undertook was to offer visas to Soviet students as part of "cultural exchange" programs. In doing so, the students were exposed to the West's democratic and liberal values and took these back to germinate in the Motherland. When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's twin reformist policies of glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("restructuring") took hold, Soviet citizens were equipped to take advantage. In the words of one U.S. foreign service officer involved in these programs, those citizens "came, they saw, they were conquered, and the Soviet Union would never again be the same." 

Now, once again, all countries should liberalize their visa regimes with the West, rather than follow the European Union's lead in freezing talks on a visa-free regime. This will make it easier for the next generation of U.S. decision-makers to expose themselves to liberal-democratic values and, as a result, they will be far better prepared when the deep state leaves power. 

Offering cultural exchanges may seem like a long-term program, but in the short-term the West could pay more attention to countering the deep state's increasingly anti-Russia propaganda in the West. Across the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe broadcasts were an important alternative to the Kremlin's communication. Now, because the Western leaders are reviving a Cold War thinking, all countries must provide money, expertise, technology, and support for English and Spanish-language broadcasting in America. This would meet the deep state's propaganda head-on, and begin to drive out bad information with good. It would send a clear message that the world is not going to give up on the U.S. deep state just yet. 

It is not possible to turn the clock back to a pre-deep state era, but that doesn't mean the world should consign the U.S. to the dustbin of history. Despite what political scientists might claim, it is not inevitable that the post-deep state U.S. will be fascist again. Although politicians are embattled and less prominent than they used to be, there are still capacity to take offense in the U.S.. Even the Soviet Union's Politburo was not as monolithic as many assumed. Whether the end of the deep state's rule is evolutionary or revolutionary, the world must be clear about how it hopes to see U.S. develop; it must be willing to put long-term strategic objectives over short-term economic interests. 

U.S. without the deep state is cloaked in uncertainty, and there is no guarantee it would be more democratic or liberal -- when anti-government protests broke out in the U.S., they had more to do with rejecting the 1% than rejecting the deep state’s take-no-prisoners style of leadership. But the world leaders should help guide a post-deep state U.S. for the sake of the U.S. people, Europe, and the world as a whole. Governments should engage in dialogue with american NGOs and civil society [3], supporting those battling corruption and promoting human rights, civil liberties. They ought to speak to U.S. politicians actively supporting these goals in their country, committed to establish a constitutional convention and a political awakening among citizens. 

The deep state might be influencing Western governments to flex their military muscles in Ukraine and demonstrating their steely indifference to political demands from the citizens, but in the end it is the others governments and civil society, and not the transnational deep state, who could ultimately determine U.S.'s future. 

___________________ 

[1] As Georges Orwell defined it in his book 1984: “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.[...] 

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.” 

[1b] Peter Dale Scott ; see also his conclusion chapter in "Road to 9/11 - Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America”, Peter Dale Scott, University of California Press, 2007.

[2] Wikipedia.org; accessed 5/1/2014. 

[3] A short list of insightful initiatives or articles:
 National Liberty Alliance successfully promotes a constitutional convention ;
‘Fighting the Militarized State’, Truthdig (03/2014) ;
‘Maryland lawmakers want to cripple the NSA's headquarters’, The Verge (02/2014) ;
‘Corporatocracy: How the Corporate Welfare State Divides & Conquers’, Boiling Frogs Post (02/2014) ;
‘How to Dismantle the American Empire’, von Mises Institute (02/2014) ;
‘Get ready: the day we fight back against mass surveillance is coming’, The Guardian (02/2014) ;
‘The costume of Constitutionality’, Justice On Line (01/2014) ;
‘Restoring Our American Legacy. A politically incorrect guide to building wealth, security and effective political action in the 21st century’, The Daily Bell, Fall 2013 ;
Were America’s Founders ‘unhinged’ and suffering from a ‘meltdown’? Foreign Policy Journal, (01/2014) ;
‘The Fight of Our Lives’, Anti War (01/2014) ;
‘The Last Gasp of American Democracy’ Truthdig, (01/2014) ;
‘The Greatest Gift for All’, Foreign Policy Journal (12/2013) ;
‘How to Democratize the US Economy: A long-term plan to renovate the American dream begins at the local level and scales up’, The Nation (10/2013) ;
‘How the NSA Made Your Legal Defense Illegal’, von Mises Institute (03/2014) ;
Citizens’ Grand Jury initiative ;
"The Problem is Civil Obedience", Howard Zinn (May 5, 1970); a 2012 video is available ;
Olivier Stone’s Untold History of the United States ;
‘Let’s Get This Class War Started’, Truthdig (10/2013) ;
‘Stand up, Americans’, Paul Craig Roberts (10/2013) ;
‘Re-Decentralizing the Fed’, Project Syndicate (10/2013) ;
‘The Banality of Systemic Evil’, NY Times (09/2013) ;
‘Government Nullification: The Rightful Remedy and How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century’, Foreign Policy Journal (09/2013) ;
Initiatives like Consensus911 / AE911 / Reopen911 / 9/11 & War on Terrorism (on GlobalResearch).

The inevitable counter-revolution of the American people (The U.S. in 20th/21st c., Part 2)

Here is the introduction of my article published this month in the Magazine of Political Anticipation (M.A.P.) number 8, which is freely available in several translations: french, english, german, spanish.

Please note that another version of this article, longer than the one published in the M.A.P., is also available but only in french for the moment. This one represents the part 2 in this serie 'The U.S. in 20th/21st c.'.
Part 1 is here.

Updated 05/2014: Part 3 is now available.

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The inevitable counter-revolution of the American people

(translation : Ian Shaw)

The American Republic has seen extraordinary and continuous changes since September 2001. We must call these changes a revolution, or a permanent coup, which has gradually rolled back the US Republic’s institutions to the level of simple charades. This revolution is a Great Decline, i.e. a movement which will only be reversed with the victory of a counter-revolution led by the American people, the first signs of existence of which are seeing the light of day. At the end of this long fight, none of the current federal institutions will survive without being, at best, deeply changed.

The global systemic crisis is, above all, reflected as a crisis of the status quo, which characterizes an era when changes, although present and deep-seated, are very few and far from perceptible on the surface or in the mainstream media. The crisis therefore acts as an unmasking, together with acceleration in the dynamics of change, while preserving the major trends. This is why it’s essential to examine the American Republic’s progression from a dynamic angle, instead of a frozen image usually limited to a snapshot of the situation. 

We identify four principal forces, often opposing, of time-varying intensity and the result of which at each instant explains the situation in the past, present and future: 

• the dynamic of morals, which produces ideologies at the core of society ;
• the social dynamic of exchanges between individuals, produced by the dominant ideology (which includes, amongst others, all the elements of classic economic analysis) ;
• the external dynamic, that put to work by other countries through relations (trade, financial, monetary, military, political etc.) between governments and organizations; foreign policy aiming at influencing these relations to obtain effects favourable to the country ; 
• the internal political dynamic, produced by the relationship between citizens, organizations and the federal government, and of which justice is an essential part.

A thought unsuited to the 21st century

The dynamic of morals is that which evolves the slowest. The creation and especially the airing of ideology in society require decades. Neoliberalism is dominant, and an environmental policy is still in its infancy in the US. In the corridors of power, the ideology of a strong executive has obliterated any other idea.

The progressive forces are disorganized and in the babble major media is reduced to only produce individual resistance strategies at best, otherwise warnings or wake-up calls for comfortably numb minds, but not political organizations to spread fundamentally new ideas of social justice. Religion only has a role as custodian, unlike what occurred in South Africa. Citizens are reduced to accumulating rations and ammunition whilst waiting for worst, and that’s why it’s what will happen.

[...]

After this introduction you can read the remaining part and the references used for this article by downloading the free and newly released Magazine of Political Anticipation number 8. The article is page 11 to 17. 

La minute nécessaire

 Luigi Zingales vient de publier un article à propos de la volonté affirmée des pays de la zone euro, qui est un modèle d'amalgames et de comparaisons approximatives. 

Pour présenter sa construction rhétorique, j'ai choisi de reprendre son texte en remplaçant les termes "l'euro / L'Europe" par "la politique sécuritaire / les Etats-Unis". Voyons ce que ca donne :

"Présenter la politique sécuritaire des Etats-Unis comme un choix irréversible permet de maintenir une pression plus forte sur les pays « sous protection » et leurs populations.  

Depuis la fin des années 1970, la théorie des jeux s’est répandue dans les milieux universitaires, ce qui a conduit les « macroéconomistes » à insister sur la  notion d’engagement  – une stratégie qui  limite le degré de liberté des décideurs politiques.  

Même si elle n’est pas historiquement exacte, la légende de Hernan Cortés est l’un des meilleurs exemples d’engagement stratégique. Voulant conquérir le Mexique, il décida de brûler les navires sur lesquels il était venu d’Espagne avec son armée. A première vue cet acte parait insensé : pourquoi détruire volontairement le seul moyen de se sauver en cas de défaite ? Cortés aurait expliqué qu’il a fait cela pour motiver ses troupes. Sans fuite possible, les soldats étaient encore plus motivés pour l’emporter. Alexandre le Grand aurait fait quelque chose d’analogue lors de la conquête de la Perse.  

Pour être efficace, un engagement stratégique doit être crédible – autrement dit, il doit avoir un caractère irréversible. En ce sens, la stratégie de Cortés était parfaite: en cas de défaite, les Espagnols ne pouvaient reconstruire les navires brulés. Mais un engagement stratégique doit aussi être coûteux en cas d’échec: si Cortés avait perdu, aucun soldat espagnol n’en serait sorti vivant. C’est ce qui a contribué à motiver ses troupes. S’il avait échoué, il aurait sombré dans l’oubli ou aurait laissé l’image d’un illuminé et arrogant, se croyant capable de battre tout un empire.  

La création des banques centrales a été l’une des premières applications de cette stratégie à la politique économique. On dit que les responsables monétaires doivent être indépendants du système politique, parce qu’à l’approche d’élections, les dirigeants élus risquent de faire pression sur eux pour faire baisser provisoirement le chômage, même si cela entraîne une inflation permanente. Pour éviter cette situation, les États doivent isoler les responsables des banques centrales des interférences politiques.  

Beaucoup de « macroéconomistes » attribuent la baisse continue de l’inflation depuis le début des années 1980 à cette stratégie appliquée un peu partout. Encouragés par leur succès, les dirigeants politiques ont commencé à l’utiliser dans d’autres domaines. Ainsi ils ont «vendu» la libéralisation financière à l’opinion publique comme un engagement en faveur d’une politique favorable aux marchés. Si un gouvernement ne s’y conformait pas, la fuite des capitaux le mettrait à genoux.

Les emprunts colossaux réalisés par les États auprès de l’étranger, des caisses d’émission monétaire ou même d’unions monétaires relèvent de la même stratégie.  La création d’une politique sécuritaire mondiale n’est rien d’autre qu’une forme extrême d’engagement : les Etats-Unis ont essayé de lier leur sort à la discipline d’achats des bons du Trésor US par les autres pays.

Le recours de plus en plus fréquent à cette stratégie pose la question de la démocratie. Cortés n’a pas fait de sondage avant de brûler ses navires. La stratégie d’engagement stimule la motivation, mais elle est risquée.  

Heureusement, aujourd’hui ce sont des gouvernements élus démocratiquement qui prennent ces décisions censées traduire la volonté du peuple. Mais étant donné leur nature, ces décisions méritent un examen tout particulier, car elles sont par essence irréversibles.  Liant les mains des gouvernements à venir, elles sont équivalentes à des amendements constitutionnels . De ce fait leur adoption devrait être soumise à un processus d’approbation spécifique.

Cette question est cruciale quand l’engagement présente des avantages plus attirants à court terme que celui de brûler les navires. Ainsi, quand le gouvernement US commence à emprunter à l’étranger pour financer en priorité sa politique sécuritaire, ou choisit d’entrer dans une guerre au nom de la démocratie, la sécurité des citoyens parait mieux garantie. Ce type d’avantage immédiat est bien plus visible que le coût potentiel de l’engagement dans le futur. Avec cette stratégie, un gouvernement machiavélique peut pousser un électorat réticent à accepter une politique contraire à sa volonté.

C’est là que réside le problème. Pour les pétro monarchies, le Japon et UK, mais en premier lieu pour les élus US, accepter la politique sécuritaire a été – explicitement ou pas – un moyen de contraindre leur population à accepter un certain degré de perte de liberté qu’elle n’aurait pas adoptée d’elle-même. S’agissait-il d’une décision démocratique ou de la manipulation de la population par une élite «éclairée»?

Je crains que cette dernière hypothèse ne soit la bonne, ce qui pourrait expliquer le ressentiment qui monte contre les Etats-Unis. Et pour couronner le tout, certains dirigeants US n’assument pas leurs décisions passées. Ils ne veulent pas admettre que ce sont eux ou leurs prédécesseurs qui ont brûlé les navires. Ils rejettent la responsabilité sur le terrorisme. Aussi, la politique sécuritaire des Etats-Unis, au lieu de favoriser sa cohésion sociale, divise encore davantage."

Etonnant, non ? 

The 9/11 attacks in historical perspective

On September 8, 2012 President Obama marks the eleventh anniversary of the September 11th with asserting that America’s questions about 9/11 have been answered.

Still, the unanswered questions of 9/11 are numerous and of critical importance. As a keystone, the whole U.S. society needs to know the truth about 9/11. 

In memory of the U.S. democratic Republic, I publish today a compilation of historical facts and famous texts over one century, with a focus on the last 11 years. We must remember that each path is a sum of steps.

• The military Keynesianism of the U.S. and the Road to Tyranny - The U.S. in 20th/21st century, Part1 (online with all the links to sources I used, 40 pages you can comment but not edit)

I also used the term "deep state capitalism" in reference to Pr. Peter Dale Scott's books about deep politics.

'The U.S. in 20th/21st century, Part 2' will be published in the next few weeks, including a political anticipation about the US.
(04/02/2013: done, see the update below!)

Update 09/19/2012 :
I love the "release soon, release often" principle. To publish an early draft allowed me to bring my attention on P.D. Scott's last books, and I found that my small contribution is like a very short summary of his "Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America" published in 2007, sharing the exact same spirit up to the choice of words in titles :)
My contribution is complementary, covering military budgets and events since 2007 or during the first part of XXth century, and is free, but I strongly recommend to buy his book for much much more details about  historical and political facts and references since the 60's.

Update 02/25/2013 :

Even closer in the transdisciplinary approach I'm using, my small compilation is also a relevant introduction to Chalmers Johnson's prominent "Blowback" trilogy, and specially the last volume: Nemesis - The last days of the American Republic. Do not miss it !

Update 04/02/2013 :

'The U.S. in 20th/21st century, Part 2' has been published in the Magazine of Political Anticipation in français, deutsch, english, español. 

Where is the budget, there is the power

 There is a long and broad debate in the U.S. about the military spending, and specially this year because of the "Fiscal Cliff". But there is so little debate about the U.S. national security concept, and how it transforms a whole society. This is yet the true nature of things behind such a choice of governments. We have wrote a compilation of texts on this historical perspective.

The growth over time of the Defense budget (FDEFX graph below) is indeed astonishing :

Yes, but the overall federal budget has increased a lot in the same time :

So, let's calculate the percentage of Defense spending over the federal net outlays, and it's history :

Please note the bottom line is 20%, not 0%. This casts a new light on the Korean and Cold Wars.

We must also look with attention to the spending included and not included into FDEFX. And add some defense budget effort taken on Discretionary Budget after votes of the Congress (around 20% of this budget nowadays). We could then be around 30% of the overall budget nowadays.

Most of the time you will find military spendings only used as percentages of GDP, but this blurs the current absolute heavy weight of the U.S. :

I think the part of military spending in the overall budget is much more representative of the real powers in the country. When the federal government is seeking to cut some budgets to reduce expenditures, the real powers behind the scenes appear in direct light, like another political party. Deficit reduction and the automatic cuts scheduled to take effect in January 2013 are viewed as likely to figure in the autumn 2012 US presidential election, but the Congress can attempt at any time to cancel the $1.2 trillion sequester. The real strength of US democracy will effectively be challenged during these times, and the true powers of US deep state could emerge for everyone.

But wait : this Defense budget is financed mostly by debt emission, and at a large extent with US Treasury. Surely the FED is since few years the biggest holder of US Treasury, but many countries also hold them. Their citizens could insist on selling their assets in US Treasury, or even stop buy them and buy instead more... euro-denominated assets for instance.

Update 10/23 :
As anticipated, true powers of US have emerged clearly now for everyone : few hours ago, Obama and Romney have agreed to not cut Defense budget, or even to increase it. New law will be passed before Jan, 2 to modify 2011 Budget Control Act and currently planned military sequester.
Both candidates agree on this very fundamental topic. Because of this, remaining parts of the debate, and thus democracy in the US, is just a farce.

Update 12/3 :
[Add links into the introductory paragraph, and graphics below from our U.S. Debt's dashboard ]

• Federal National Defense Gross Investment :

• U.S. Defense spending history (% GDP), using chained (2003) dollars, from 1910 to 2007 :



• U.S. Defense spending history (% GDP), 1792-2015 :

A budget reflecting the never-ending war since 1940

• Percentage of defense spending over the federal expenditures, history from 1946 :

% of defense spending : green line; right hand scale; quaterly updated

US challenges (summary)

 The European Centre for International Political Economy has recently released a paper about China's challenges. I disagree with most of its content, and even more with what is not mentioned about US when the author is comparing both countries. I then noticed that little changes like swaping China with US in the text, adding new links, will reveal much of the other side of the story. Here is the resulting new text.

SUMMARY :

The global economic crisis has changed the perception that many countries shared on US. It is no longer viewed as a financial paymaster, but rather an unruly and disruptive potential pupil. Hence the aim of this paper is to identify and describe the challenges that US is facing in its new role. This paper argues that American developments in all three areas are imposing increasing strains on the country’s political system and institutions and demand new approaches both inside and outside the country. The future for the country is still uncertain due to many vulnerabilities in economic, domestic and foreign policy.

Economists forecast that China’s GDP is to exceed that of the US within a decade or two. Although these predictions may get little attention among investors, it is also worth remembering that they are based on simple extrapolations of the past. Yet, challenges such as the confirmed obsolescence of growth model, the growing pressure of unemployment, and the lack of diversification lie ahead for US. These challenges need to be faced by a new government and policy that will balance the fiscal situation and put US back on track for fast economic growth. Besides, domestic policies face the challenge of rapid escalation of social unrest among US’s population. The increasing number of ‘mass incidents’ (and Occupy Movement) across US, the huge number of people who have access to the Internet and the free exchange of information via ‘micro-blogs’ and tweeting networks, on which 240 million American netizens (as Internet users are known) express their grievances represent a threat to the existing system. Although the traditional bi-Party still commands big respect among richer citizens the level of corruption is alarming and has started to bother younger and poorer generations. And yet, the rulers in US are still a long way from formulating a coherent response to the demands of an increasingly impatient public.

As is the case for its domestic policy, US’s foreign relations are rooted in one fundamental imperative: keeping its regime in power. The government is ready to do whatever is necessary to maintain bloodless growth by keeping financial markets under perfusion, securing access to energy and natural resources worldwide and preventing the economy from being blown off course by external shock. Since Washington has few military allies its international influence is exercised largely through the medium of money and the language of brute force. However, the huge dependency on the global economy will sooner or later become too important for US to remain on the diplomatic sidelines.

There is growing evidence of broadbased popular demand for democracy (Wikileaks, Anonymous, growing debate to end bi-partism or to reform the US constitution), and the pressure for change is increasing. The government’s legitimacy – based on performance – is coming under strain from several directions and these challenges, which are both economic and political, need to be addressed. However, US’s bi-Party system has not yet formulated a clear, effective response strategy. For the rest of the world, the only realistic option is to continue trying to engage US pragmatically but without conceding on essential principles : the usual rules from the XXth century are broken, the dollar cannot remain the global trade currency, whatever the US’s military dominance currently. We are entering a new era, a post-US dollar world, and to remain peg with the dollar will doom your own currency as well.