America’s prestige has rapidly declined. The 2003 war in Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis, Edward Snowden’s exposure of the NSA’s spying program, the weaponization of the US dollar, and America’s diplomatic isolation in support of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza have chipped away at the persuasion power of Washington’s argument that it is uniquely qualified to uphold the rule of law and that it holds a universal mandate to impose its political ideology on the world.
The concept of soft power, popularized by Joseph Nye, holds that the key to American hegemony lies in its ability to inspire obedience, rather than obtain it through coercion. The popular culture, political values, and foreign policy of the United States, according to Nye, allows America to compel nations to do its bidding through seduction, rather than the traditional means of carrot (bribes) or stick (war).
Underpinning Nye’s theory is an unfalsifiable assumption that there are silent majorities of people all over the world who prefer liberal democracy, LGBT, special minority protections, feminism, multi-culturalism, and individualist economics to the pre-war “Strong Gods” of nationalism, tradition, and collectivism. The world may love iPhones and Coca Cola, but as famous Chicago Bulls fan Kim Jong Un shows, this does not always translate to an embrace of the American system.
This line of thinking has arguably blinkered American elites to the point of walking into avoidable diplomatic defeats in several theaters. The regular occurrence of “color revolutions” throughout the 1990s and 2000s could lend credence to Nye’s view, but these types of uprisings have not succeeded in recent years as America falls out of favor as a political model and nations grow more sophisticated in combating Washington’s covert influence (such as through Non-Governmental Organizations) and espionage.
The main weakness of Nye’s theory is that it does not allow for the possibility of anti-liberal ideals being attractive. During the Cold War the United States posited itself as a defender of Christian civilization and human freedom against Soviet atheism and totalitarianism with a degree of success. But since 2012, Vladimir Putin has worked to position his country as a counter to America’s fixation on sexually deviant behavior to become the global leading voice of heteronormativity and the traditional family, a position the overwhelming majority of humanity — including in Western nations — agrees with. A law recently passed forcing US embassies abroad to hide the LGBT and Black Lives Matter flags they have previously flown suggests that this type of soft power is more effective than liberal academics are comfortable admitting.
Today, nations the United States considers to be “democracies” trapped in the web of Atlanticist treaties continue to elect leaders who campaign in defense of ethnic majorities and against immigrants, promise law and order crackdowns, and purport to uphold traditional values, as seen with Recep Erdogan in Turkey, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Narendra Modi of India, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, and even the presidential election of Donald Trump in 2016. In France, Emmanuel Macron has been forced to publicly attack America’s anti-white values just to stave off challenges from figures such as Marine Le Pen, while in Germany the government is panicking over the favorable polling numbers of Alternativ Fur Deutschland. Tucker Carlson’s recent visit to Russia, where he praised their public order and grocery stores, was a massively demoralizing moment for not just American elites, but also their partners in Russia’s anti-Putin liberal opposition, who have come to rely entirely on the image of a rich and corruption-free America for recruitment. When looking at where popular momentum is both inside of the West and beyond, one must seriously question how many nations will remain committed to structures such as NATO once its military and economic power is matched or even overshadowed by adversaries such as Russia and China.
What the United States conceives as democracy has now declined globally for the 20th consecutive year. American discourse in foreign relations has become more mercenary and vicious, increasingly relying on threats of economic sanctions, military intervention or significant tradeoffs to achieve compliance. Some have observed that “globalization” is in truth Americanization, and all would agree that globalization is in rapid retreat.
Conversations critical of American hegemony have broken out of the stilted left-wing tradition to become mainstream and pragmatic, including in nations considered safe within Washington’s orbit. Among these rising voices includes adherents to liberalism, who are beginning to express opposition to the influence of Washington, California and New York in their own lands in anti-colonialist terms. English academic Angus Hanton’s new book Vassal State argues that American financiers and multi-nationals are looting Britain’s economy and have totally eroded the nation’s sovereignty. Emmanuel Todd, a Jew firmly committed to liberal ideals, has published a best-selling book, La Défaite de l’Occident, which warns France that the American order’s downfall is imminent. Esteemed American economist Michael Hudson and Norwegian academic Glenn Diesen express similar sentiments.
In other words, United States commands neither admiration or respect, leading to an increased reliance on hard power, which has the multiplier effect of increasing global resentment. The unprecedented rise of China offers a gateway to economic prosperity and technological innovation without being forced to embrace all of America’s nihilistic and unintuitive values has undermined the power of the carrot (access to powerful US dollars). As nations such as Russia and Iran meet Washington’s military threats directly and check its global ambitions, fear of the stick is fading.
The future of the world is shaping up to be one of a series of ala carte relationships, where small and medium sized nations deal with multiple powers — the USA, European Union, China, Russia, even Iran — on their own terms and according to their own interests.
Diplomacy
A major story in the shift in world affairs is the unfolding rivalry in developmental economics between the US’ International Monetary Fund and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The Belt and Road Initiative seeks to challenge America’s maritime trade system by creating a new “Silk Road” linking global economic exchange over land.
IMF recipients generally receive loans, at times with high interest, on the condition that they reform their political and economic systems, largely through eliminating protectionism and a program of asset privatization. Countries are often unable to pay these loans off, leading them into debt traps that allows bankers and multinationals to take advantage of the cranked open markets to snatch up privatized resources at fire sale prices or opportunistically capitalize on debt restructuring agreements. One famous victim of this debt-driven system was Argentina, whose economy was thoroughly stripped by Jewish vulture capitalist Paul Singer via the practice of predatory sovereign lending.
The BRI is distinct in that it is infrastructure-led and impersonal. Chinese banks pay Chinese firms to (usually) employ Chinese labor to build infrastructure with Chinese raw materials for poor nations. These are generally structured as joint-ventures, where recipients who cannot pay back the loans give Chinese firms control over the specific infrastructure project (ports, highways, high speed railways, etc) until generated profits pay off the investment and it is handed over.
Around 150 nations have signed up for China’s BRI, whereas the IMF currently has 35 customers.
A key selling point for the BRI is the Chinese policy of non-interference in local cultural or political affairs. The Chinese do not have any problem doing business with nations designated as pariahs by liberal institutions, such as Belarus, whose first national car plant was built by the BRI system, or Hungary, Eritrea, Iran, the Taliban’s Afghanistan and so on.
By contrast, the IMF has emerged as an institution used to impose Jewish ambitions and engage in social engineering as loan conditions that offend local values and undermine the self-interest of sovereign states. Examples abound. Last year, the IMF stated it will not loan Tunisia money until it ends its crackdown on illegal immigration and lets in African migrants. Both the IMF and World Bank, led by the local US ambassador, have threatened to pull billions of dollars in financing to Ghana over its parliament passing a law prohibiting public displays of homosexuality. In Egypt, the IMF has been dangling billions in bailout money contingent on their acceptance of Palestinians Israel wants to ethnically cleanse.
In theory, nations could deal with both China and the United States, but American diplomacy is often zero-sum. The assumption that America will always be the better deal is being tested by China’s counter-model for global development, to the benefit of once powerless nations.
Washington initially threatened popular Salvadorian president Nayib Bukele with sanctions over his now internationally lauded crime crackdown. The US, which began referring to to Bukele as the new Hugo Chavez, was thwarted when the Salvadorian leader responded to the needling by whipping the door open to China and signaling support for Russia. This turned the tables on Washington, who wound up learning to live instead of risking being told to get out. The National Library of El Salvador, an impressive modern educational facility that is the crown jewel of the Bukele government, was constructed as a token of friendship by China.
In Hungary, Washington and Brussels’ leverage also appears to be weakening. Last month, David Pressman, America’s gay Jewish ambassador to the NATO member state, gave a speech vowing to punish and bring down the popularly elected government of Viktor Orban. In his address, Pressman stated “While the Orbán government may want to wait out the United States government, the United States will certainly not wait out the Orbán administration. While Hungary waits, we will act.”
Orban has shrugged off these threats by drastically increasing his economic ties to China and Russia. Orban has enraged the pro-US faction in his parliament by supporting the expansion of a Chinese University in Hungary and signing a contract with Russia to build a nuclear power plant in the country. Other regional “outlaws,” such as Bulgaria and Slovakia, are following suit. If the economic and military benefits of being in NATO or the European Union no longer justify the relentless meddling by foreign actors, it is a matter of time before these nations exit these alliances.
Another major setback for American diplomacy is occurring in the resource rich Sahel region of Africa. Nations such as Mali and Burkina Faso have thrown out France and the US, opting instead for military support from Russia’s Wagner Group and economic partnerships with China. Chad, the last African nation that hosts a French military presence, is drifting away towards Russia and China even as the Macron government begs them to stay.
The new military government of Niger, which houses an American base with 1,000 troops, replied to arrogant US demands that they resign from power and restore the Washington asset Mohamed Bazoum by ordering US troops to leave their country country. Niger’s leadership has concluded that America is incapable of good faith negotiations and vowed to satisfy their security and economic needs through Russia and China. One foreign policy analyst summed up the ordeal as follows: “In this new multipolar world, it seems that the United States, still arguably the richest and most powerful country in the world, needs Niger, one of the world’s poorest and weakest countries, more than Niger needs it.”
In the Philippines, a former and arguably current US colony, we have also seen glimpses of defiance. Rodrigo Duterte, who was browbeat throughout his presidency by Washington and its NGOs for his own anti-crime campaign, responded to this harassment by moving to cancel the country’s Visiting Forces Agreement with the US in 2020. The Biden administration was able to salvage this military presence — a vital component in Washington’s anti-China strategy in the Pacific — by offering steep concessions and promising to back off from internal Filipino affairs. The ascension of Ferdinand Marcos Jr in 2022 was well received by Washington, under the assumption that he was steadfastly pro-US, but Marcos Jr has himself emulated some of Duterte’s assertive posture, such as by forging deeper economic and diplomatic ties with Iran.
The State Department is even struggling to control Saudi Arabia, a nation commonly perceived as a fully dependent client state of the American empire. In one instance, the Saudis refused demands from the Biden administration to increase oil production to lessen the impact of sanctions against Russia in Europe. Adding insult to injury, the Saudis have more or less informally integrated Russia into OPEC.
Perhaps the biggest blow to America’s Jewish-concocted foreign policy aspirations was the Chinese brokered peace agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, effectively bringing the bloody sectarian Sunni vs Shi’ite sectarian conflict that has haunted the Middle East for decades to an end. Since then, the Saudis have ended their horrific war against the Houthis in Yemen and restored diplomatic ties with the government of Bashar al-Assad, a leader it spent a decade trying to overthrow. Last week, the Saudis publicly declared that they would not allow their airspace to be used to protect Israel from Iran.
On the Palestine-Israel conflict, China and Russia have emerged as unlikely moral leaders in their strongly worded opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza, the worst atrocity of the 21st century being broadcast in real time to billions over social media. At the United Nations, the world continues to support, in virtual consensus, a ceasefire in the war, along with the recognition of Palestinian statehood. These efforts are continuously vetoed by the United States. Commentators and even US diplomats hold that America’s unconditional support for the Jewish state’s barbarism that billions are witnessing in real time over social media is a point of no return for the USA’s legitimacy as the international human rights policeman.
Liberal academics have started coming to terms with the growing view that America is a bad actor on the global stage. Some blame the Trump administration’s brash and thuggish language (calling on NATO countries to protection money, killing the families of belligerents, stealing the oil in Syria, etc) for America’s plummeting reputation, but in truth, many people around the world found Trump to be refreshingly honest when communicating what the US’ motives have been all along.
Technology
America’s reputation as the global leader in technological innovation, both in consumer products and weapons, is a vital incentive for nations on the fence about acquiescing to its interests. Life without the smartphone, the internet, or the personal computer — revolutionary American innovations unveiled and popularized at the height of Pax Americana in the 1990s and 2000s — would be unthinkable today. Nations who, for political reasons, were not allowed to access these technologies naturally fell far behind everyone else.
This is no longer true for the industries of tomorrow. The balance of power in the realm of technology has dramatically shifted in favor a sophisticated China. Last year, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that the US and the liberal sphere at large were trailing China in 37 of 44 crucial technological fields, which includes robotics, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology.
This growing gap is beginning to be seen in consumer products, such as the iPhone, which since its inception in 2007 has been seen as the international standard in cellphone technology.
Last year, Huawei released its Mate 60 model to compete with the new iPhone 15. The iPhone 15 was launched to mixed reviews, with consumers calling it an underwhelming cash-grab that did not add any new features. The Mate 60, on the other hand, bests the iPhone 15 on many fronts, especially the groundbreaking inclusion of the ability to make satellite calls. American manufacturers already produce satellite phones, which are big, clunky and difficult to carry, but nobody has ever incorporated this technology into a smartphone you can fit in your pocket.
The United States government has made banning the sale of Huawei products both a domestic and foreign policy objective. The challenge for the US government is that Apple is becoming less competitive than its Chinese rivals due to the American corporate titan’s preference to satiate its greed through unproductive stock buybacks at the expense of investing in research and development. The Department of Justice is trying to force Apple to innovate, but the nature of the American finance-driven economic system makes this difficult.
The geopolitical ramifications are starting to be felt. Despite using the US using threats to get Chinese smartphones banned from as many markets as possible, Apple has now officially fallen behind Huawei and associated brands in global smartphone sales. This is a setback for the US government’s surveillance capabilities due to the NSA’s reliance on backdoor access to Apple and other American phone products to spy on the world.
In the realm of electric vehicles, another theater in the technological cold war, China has far surpassed the US. Earlier this year, Chinese car manufacturer BYD — dubbed by the New York Times as the “Tesla killer” — overtook Tesla as the world’s bestselling EV.
BYD’s popularity in China and beyond is driven by its budget models, which cost about a quarter of the starting price of a Tesla. BYD’s are relatively inexpensive due to their diversified approach, such as producing batteries in-house. China currently has a 22% adoption rate for electric vehicles, which is playing a role in reducing emissions and smog, while in the US the rate of EV adoption is at under 6%.
That is not to say the United States is behind everywhere. America has one-upped China by creating the first interactive AIs. This achievement, however, has been sullied by the absurd scandal of the Google Gemini bot, which was programmed to refuse any normal portrayal of white people in order to fit America’s ruling ideology.
This disease is showing symptoms in ChatGPT, the first conversational AI tool, which is programmed to block “hateful” queries on race and gender, as well as “content attempting to influence the political process.” ChatGPT will not even allow users to generate scientific research critical of transgenderism. A tool that should place the US ahead of China in the AI race is now dismissed as a propaganda tool by a substantial portion of the American people at home.
This malaise is plaguing other strategic fields where the United States has always been respected. A combination of racial hiring quotas discriminating against qualified white employees and greed-fueled corporate corner cutting has led to several high-profile technical failures of Boeing’s newest airplanes, transforming the name of the global leader in aerospace products into a source of anxiety when flying. Both anti-white racism and the “greed is good” philosophy of business are integral to Americanism, meaning that remedying this problem will be difficult, if not impossible.
Access to America’s high-tech weapons have long served as a powerful foreign policy tool, but here too America has been falling way behind due to the immense corruption and inefficiency of national arm’s manufacturers. The $1.7 trillion dollar F-35 program remains one of the biggest public spending disasters in US history. Russia’s Su-57 and China’s Chengdu J-20 match most of the F-35’s capabilities, though some would argue the J-20 is superior.
In the realm of difficult to intercept hypersonic missiles, the news is grim for the US. Iran, China, and Russia are all considered to be far ahead of the United States, having effectively tested their first missiles and in Russia’s case used them in battle, while America’s attempts at testing its version of this technology have failed.
Earlier this month, the small and heavily sanctioned nation of North Korea beat the US by successfully testing its own hypersonic missile, the Hwasong-16B. This development has provoked more questions than answers. It is widely speculated that Russia covertly transferred this technology to the North Koreans, granting them a surprising strategic edge against America’s presence in the region.
The US currently holds an arm’s exporting advantage over Russia due to the war in Ukraine, but the desire to access Russia’s cheaper yet more advanced weapon’s systems, such as the S-400 defense system, remains a major barrier preventing strategic powers like India from fully supporting Washington’s ambitions of creating an “Asian NATO.”
Culture
The proliferation of American pop culture, where Jews play an important role as tastemakers, has been an important arrow in the global hegemon’s quiver. There is no question that Levi’s jeans, rock music and McDonalds captured the imaginations of millions in the Eastern bloc during the Cold War. In 2002, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more blunt, suggesting to the US Congress that they should work to broadcast Beverly Hills 90210 into Iran to foment discord, with Netanyahu quipping, “that’s subversive stuff!”
The popularity of American culture still retains some of its power, but it has undoubtedly waned globally.
During the 1990s, the semi-nude buxom blondes on the series Baywatch made it the most watched TV show in the world. Fast forward to 2023, and the CGI remake of The Little Mermaid starring a black woman as the titular character was a box office bomb in Disney-loving China and most of the rest of the world. Chinese reviewers had no qualms stating why they boycotted the film: they believe it is inappropriate to cast a black person to star in a European folk tale and dismissed “Western” critiques of their “racism” as stupid.
Citizens in countries with massive populations like China and India are now rejecting Hollywood films and the values they promote, choosing to watch films made domestically instead.
The grip on social media, once monopolized by Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, etc, is also weakening. The global adaptation of social media throughout the 2000s and 2010s allowed Washington’s policy makers to beam American propaganda and lifestyles into the smartphones of young people all over the world, leading to episodes such as the Arab Spring.
The use of these social media apps by American, British, and Israeli state actors and NGOs to foment chaos and organize violence was cited as the reason for banning them in nations such as Turkey, Pakistan and China, leading to accusations from the West that they were undermining the free and open internet.
Now the US government is on the defensive, working to outlaw or force the sale of one of the most popular apps in America — the Chinese-owned TikTok — due to the widespread anti-Israel sentiment allowed to flow on the platform.
Russian and Chinese owned social media platforms have grown more sophisticated while their American equivalents have stagnated, leading to the widespread domestic adaptation and increasing international use of non-American products.
Russian Pavel Durov’s free speech friendly app, Telegram, has risen to the 7th most used social media platform, while Elon Musk’s attempt to compete, Twitter, is not even in the top 10. China’s WeChat is now fifth most used, TikTok is sixth, and Weibo is 10th.
China and Russia can now answer Amazon with Ali Baba and Ozon. The Google search engine has been met with Yandex and Baidu, with Yandex being less controlled and censored than even its “free speech” American competitor DuckDuckGo.
Access to American treats, such as Starbucks and McDonalds, have also been politicized by US elites, but not always to their benefit. Sanctions led to most American brands abruptly leaving Russia in 2022, but the native replacements have become more popular than their predecessors.
In a February earnings call, McDonald’s showed anemic growth. Chief Financial Advisor Ian Borden cited the boycott by the billion strong Muslim world over its support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza as the culprit. Starbucks, which is owned by the Zionist Jew Howard Schulz, is also being run out of the Middle East for supporting Israel.
In a sense, the American homogenization of the world’s cultural and consumer preferences represents a restoration of human diversity and exclusivity. US-made products are no longer “must-haves.” In soft power terms, this means Washington policymakers will need to make peace with a world that does not automatically share all of its assumptions or preferences and adapt or die.
https://www.unz.com/estriker/the-collapse-of-the-american-empire-part-iii-diplomacy-and-soft-power/