NATO fighters over the Baltics
US dual containment policy will increasingly count on proxy actors and proxy wars, but Washington cannot reconcile its Middle East and European goals.
Written by Uriel Araujo, researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts
This week, global leaders will attend the Munich Security Conference ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. As the so-called “Ukraine’s fatigue” persists in the West, US-China tensions are expected to feature prominently at the event. Although overburdened and in decline, the US still insists in pursuing its dangerous “dual containment” policy goals aimed at “encircling” and “countering” two great powers at the same time, namely China and Russia. To do so, Washington might need to increasingly bet on proxy actors and proxy wars,
Jonathan Askonas and Gill Barndollar, two researchers at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship, argued in July 2022 that, having Sweden and Finland in NATO, the US could then pivot to the Pacific. Their argument remains relevant: they reasoned that the Baltic states are a flash point for the Atlantic Alliance, and so Finland and Sweden’s membership could turn the Baltic Sea into a “NATO lake”, from an American perspective, as also reasons Andreas Kluth’s (a journalist who writes for the Economist), thereby giving the Alliance the means to better “defend” Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Both aforementioned Nordic states have tremendously increased their defense spending over the last years.
Basically, Askonas and Barndollar write that, in this scenario, although America’s “nuclear umbrella” would remain, the “burden” of “conventional deterrence and warfighting” in Europe would be up to the European NATO members. Then, with the two Scandinavian countries in NATO, a somewhat less overstretched United States could also pivot to the Pacific.
I have written on how here are signs today that the US world order is declining: even its military power has unprecedentedly been found to be “weak” by the Heritage Foundation “2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength” report. Meanwhile, China’s trade, diplomatic and military influence is on the rise in Latin America, in the context of the new Cold War.
The United States still uses the dollar as a weapon, often described as the “dollar bomb”. However, an international de-dollarization process has started, marked by Moscow’s March 2022 decision pertaining to the use of rubles to pay for Russian gas. Other signs of this process include Chinese-Saudi Arabia cooperation and even the OPEC+ decision to cut oil output mark, which can impact the petro-dollar, yet another pillar of the Western financial system, according to M. K. Bhadrakumar, former Indian diplomat.
Historian Stephen Wertheim, in an interview with Foreign Policy editor in chief Ravi Agrawal, made an excellent point about Washington’s being “overburdened”, as it has to overextend its power today. That being so, Wertheim, as well as many foreign policy “realists” (such as Harvard University professor of international relations Stephen M. Walt), argues that the United States should, as I have also written on, exercise “restraint”, the so-called “offshore balancing”, in Taiwan and Ukraine, among other places.
The problem is that Washington sees being the world’s sole superpower as its role and raison d’être, and therefore any threat to American unipolarity is perceived by the US Establishment as an existential risk, according to Andrew Latham, a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul. This view is rooted in American exceptionalism and can be traced back to the Puritan’s biblical metaphor about the “city upon a hill”, as Thomas E. Woods Jr., senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, brilliantly argued in a 2012 piece which is still relevant today.
This being so, it would appear that Washington, in a kind of “plan B”, would prefer to push for a new bipolarity rather than welcoming the emergence of any new multipolar world order.
However, in 2022, many American voices were already expressing doubts about the US ability to “counter Russia” while, at the same time, focusing on China, as Daniel W. Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, wrote in May 2022.
In this sense, the US might indeed have to rethink its current dual containment policy and “choose” a focus. Washington has pushed for further militarization and nuclearization of Europe, as seen in its re-scheduled sending of upgraded B61-12 air-dropped thermonuclear gravity bombs to Europe, in December 2022. In the aftermath of the 2022 NATO Summit in Madrid, US President Joe Biden claimed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin should expect to see the “NATOization of Europe”. Thus, Askonas and Barndollar’s speculations are increasingly making sense as a possible scenario Washington could bet on – especially in light of the recent escalation of Chinese-American tensions over the issue of supposed Chinese espionage balloons, in a clear US attempt to prevent any detent with its Asian rival.
Such an European scenario, in any case, would still depend on a number of factors, one of them being obviously the very feasibility of the Sweden and Finland bid to join NATO. So far, Turkey has been “stubbornly” blocking it, and in order to reverse the Turkish stance on this issue, Washington would have to rethink its Middle East policies regarding Kurdish groups in Syria. As I wrote on February 10, American goals in Europe and in the Middle East cannot be reconciled. This is yet another dilemma the US faces, and as the slow global wave towards multipolary and de-dollarization advances, such challenges and contradictions, from an American perspective, should only increase.
Go ahead and call the Interpol and tell them that Vladimir Putin is sore in the asshole.🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
taliban made my anus bleed
Finland and Sweden on the West side, Japan on the East side. US military base biggest shit is about to be build in Arctic north of Russia, and East- European shithole countries ready as buffer nations. Wonna make a bet?
Finland and Sweden are pretty useless. Washington is doomed either way.
Sweden and Finland has the GDP as half of Rustica. Most likely You not even know where it is. It seemes so.
GDP is just the amount of spending. The Western countries are spending big because they’re borrowing from their own future. I wouldn’t brag with the GDP if I were you.
ENTONCES ESTO APENAS INICIA Y FALTA MUCHO PARA TERMINAR !!
Perhaps they will threaten Turkey with more haarp earthquakes if the Turks don’t bend over for them.
Hurry up and join the army that is your future military dictatorship and depopulation enforcers.
Puritans are even more psychotic than Talmudic jews. And these are “pure” followers of a god? The problem is that they never said who their god is. Jesus Christ isn’t, that’s for sure. Puritans are kind of people who escaped from a soul assylum after night watchman accidentaly left main doors unlocked. Now they have to be picked, one by one, build a new Noah’s Ark, put them all in, sail the ark to the center of Pacific and sink a fucking vessel in the middle of nowhere, for the sharks to feed on.
Hard to see the relations even You dont use an antivirus program.
1) For Europe this is not about USA at all.
Its about Europe just as before the communists infected it was a free to go anywhere(apart from jews).
By that Sweden and Finland are not inluded as a part of USA. USA support the USSR leftovers has a right to have normal relations to the rest of the world and by that raise their livingstandards.
Telling its about USA dilemmas makes no sense. As the rest of us they want trade and devllopments for that area too, which of course includes Caucasus.
Western Economics are based on the stockmarkets. By that we are based on shares and benefits no matter country. We own each other.
2)The RUSSIA HA HA STUPIDISME VERSION.
73% oid Denmark is owned by foreigner, we hardly exit…
But we own much more as Danes around the world and in Russia too such as Rockwool. The biggest insuline company in USA is danish´sh too – Novo Nordisk.
And what was the characteristics for the USSR? It collapsed itself by infected nepotisme driven by few Leaders.
Somebody told me the food on Denmark wasn’t as good as the food in France. Do you think that’s true Jens?
During WWII the Danish Nazi Party got 18% of the popular vote, more than any other party. And that was in the first (and last) election it contested.
75% of my anus is owned by mulatto pimp
I lick all nazi penis—in collapsed americunt colony dumbmark
2)The RUSSIA HA HA STUPIDISME VERSION.
73% oid Denmark is owned by foreigner, we hardly exit…
But we own much more as Danes around the world and in Russia too such as Rockwool. The biggest insuline company in USA is danish´sh too – Novo Nordisk.
And what was the characteristics for the USSR? It collapsed itself by infected nepotisme driven by few Leaders.
Northern and eastern Europeans are the only ones considering NATO as something of importance to their every day life. NATO from Germany figuratively towards west and south is totally irrelevant to the day to day life of the citizens and what matters here is the relationship with the euro Dollar debt system. Russia needs to take out it’s resources from the equation or better, divide European countries by offering great deals on the same resources, selecting on a country to country basis.
US has debt, but it lacks the resources and the human capital. It’s a Hollywood society. Europe is divided with contrasting interests. Therefore is busy convincing others how deeply their interests aligne. Germany without an economic relationship with the east is becoming a dump no matter what kind of social discipline it may (not) put on the table. New fault lines will form on the European landmass on the basis of localized contrasting interests. New wars may start, and this was the NATO playbook from the get go.
Turkey wants to throw wrenches into the works of both Russia and the US. Just like the US intended for the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, back before they entered the war themselves. But the US did eventually pick the side in that conflict, and so will Turkey in this one. And it won’t be NATO.
From the book, CHURCHILL, HITLER, AND “THE UNNECESSARY WAR” by PATRICK J. BUCHANAN
Ours is a peculiarly American blindness. Under the Monroe Doctrine, foreign powers are to stay out of our hemisphere. Yet no other great power is permitted to have its own sphere of influence. We bellow self-righteously when foreigners funnel cash into our elections, yet intrude massively with tax dollars in the elections of other nations—to promote our religion of democracy.
We are approaching what Walter Lippmann called “foreign policy bankruptcy.” Like the British before us, America has reached imperial overstretch.
For if the U.S. Army and Marine Corps are stretched to the limit by the insurgencies in Mesopotamia and Afghanistan, how can we police the rest of the planet?
We cannot. If two or three of the IOUs we have handed out are called in, the bankruptcy of U.S. foreign policy will be exposed to the world.
MIght want to watch for some massive mossad betrayal coming over the horizon. Kramatorsk. APplying political pressure to force the millitary into a more aggressive stance.
Yup, Jews have their dicks in very muzlim’s ass.
Most Finns dont want to join Nato, its just that a nato coup has taken over Finland
This writing is a joke. I thought I could pull legs and tell tall tales…this takes the cake. The USA doesn’t need Finland and Sweden in NATO to park their fucking nukes close to Russia. Nor will those countries joining NATO do anything but make their vassal status to Rothschild counterfieting corruption a more open and official reality. You want to write sommat interesting? Write about how Rothschild plans to avoid getting his ‘so-called planet’ nuked into a radioactive piss hole if he keeps up doubling down on his pathological stupidity of trying revive the failed kingdom of Khazaria. It’s dead, it’s history, it’s never coming back now, not even ‘greater israel for the fake jews’, give it up already! The planet, and its future, doesn’t belong to the socially arrested Rothschilds!
As Russia thrives culturally economically militarily the nazi dwarfs become more agitated—gestapo stapo, jens Sawyer etc😂🇷🇺
“it is impossible for the west to match Russian strength…we—the amerrikans more so are dependent for our self respect on the feeling that others like us. The individual Russian is little distressed and far more able to tolerate hate and fear than the westerner. Indeed, in Russia the word hate is rarely heard.” Geoffrey Gorer