Pax Americana and American Exhaustion
Americans are fed up with being the worlds police
No matter how hard we try, how “democratic” we make things, or how many checks and balances we put in place, the values of our federal government will never line up with the values of the American people.
It’s a simple fact of life.
The problems arise when those values are so DRASTICALLY different.
The American public is pretty isolationist. We are separated from the rest of the world by two giant oceans. We aren’t directly connected to Europe, Asia, or Africa, except through the internet, which allows a disconnect.
Sure, now in the information age, with America being a top consumer of goods, that’s somewhat less true and possible. Unless we want to turn into a poverty-stricken hellhole like North Korea, we can’t be isolationist. But the American government took that idea and decided to be in everyone’s business, all the time.
We became the world’s cops.
And Americans are starting to get fucking tired of it.
This concept of Pax Americana isn’t new. I recently learned about it from Noah Smith’s You’re not Going to Like What Comes After Pax Americana. I’ll cut a long yard short for you reader.
The United States, being the World’s cop, has ushered in an age of global peace. If one country or group wants to kick the shit out of another, they have to worry about the world's most powerful military picking a side, and it might not be theirs.
This is great for many people, sometimes (I’ll get to that later).
Global peace is good.
Protecting trade is good.
But now you have to understand why the American people are starting to get pissed.
America spends almost a trillion dollars on defense spending. We outspend continents on defense spending. Much of this is for global peace, but Americans have seen the other side of the issue, the Military Industrial Complex.
All of these wars, conflicts, interventions, and proxies help enrich Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and their shareholders. The War in Iraq boosted the wealth of Halliburton and Dick Cheney. Trust me, we'll get to Iraq later.
These wars and interventions aren’t being fought for entirely altruistic reasons, and the American people know it.
Proponents of foreign aid to countries such as Ukraine will, correctly, argue that most of the $74.3 Billion we’ve sent to Ukraine stays over here. About 90% of the funding for Ukraine “stays” here in the United States.
Weapons, rounds, and equipment are made in the United States. Abrams and Styker vehicles are made in Lima, Ohio, according to this horribly framed Washington Post Article.
It shouldn’t and can’t be a “best kept secret” This isn’t obvious to the average American voter. Your regular Joe on the street doesn’t know the ins and outs of American proxy war economics or foreign aid diplomacy. They see a headline about $40 Billion to Ukraine and probably think we’re just sending them a check for $40 Billion.
Your average American looks around at food, water, and air that’s poison, kids that are undereducated and fucking stupid, social security that might run out before they have a chance to cash in, the fact some states have a life expectancy on par with developing countries, and wonders, WHAT THE FUCK?
If 90% of aid to Ukraine stays in house, that should be hollered from the fucking rooftops. It should not be a “best kept secret,” especially as aid to Ukraine starts becoming even more unpopular and harder to actually send.
We’re operating under the presumption that these wars are just.
During the Vietnam War, Henry Kissinger met with Richard Nixon, and they both decided to bomb the shit out of Cambodia.
Two men met in an office and decided the fate of an entire country. They directly signed the death warrant for 150,000 human lives. In its pursuit to halt the spread of communism, US actions inarguably led to communism. After the bombing campaigns, communist Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia, killing even more. The fallout from that war, landmines, still harms people today.
This was morally wrong. Henry Kissinger is a war criminal because of it.
Who was going to stop us, though? Cambodia? China? Was the UN going to wag their fingers and sanction us?
Side Note: If a politician were to be tried as a war criminal, the US can and will invade The Hague under the American Service-Members' Protection Act, otherwise known as The Hague Invasion Act, to make sure they don’t get tried.
Then we have Iraq.
America used a casus belli that was obvious bullshit to take down Saddam Hussein. Terrorism had fuck all to do with it. WMDs had fuck all to do with it.
Ukraine receives billions in funding, while Georgia, a nation that has been a constant victim of Russian aggression, gets nothing. I have it on good authority that the Georgian people are BEGGING for US help, and what does the US send? $134.2 million in 2023. A fraction of what Ukraine receives.
Now we have the Israel-Gaza conflict. A fucking shitshow. As support grows for Palestine, the US becomes increasingly isolated in its alliance with Israel. The world is turning against Israel and its blatant war crimes, and in turn, coming into opposition to the US.
So not only has the US done some really dicey things in the past, but now the government might be complicit in aiding in the destruction of an entire group of people.
Why are Americans tired of being the world's police? Americans look around and see conflict after conflict, seemingly fought at our expense.
Do Americans care about soft power, foreign aid, diplomacy, or testing our weapons against a future Russia/China conflict?
No, they don’t. Especially when all those things help enrich an already wealth class of war profiteers.
I will forever and always advocate for the US taking a step back on the world stage. Not a step off the stage. We can hand the reins to the European Union and focus on ourselves for a while. There’s a lot more that I want to talk about, but I’m nearing the email length limit.
Until next week.