by Danny Haiphong
The U.S imperial order is in a terminal state. Despite its overwhelming conventional military strength, the Empire needs the services of jihadist terrorists to promote its policies in the Middle East, “yet cannot allow them to take power as they did in Libya.” Latin America has largely freed itself from U.S. imperialism, which “can no longer unilaterally impose its will on its compliant allies like Israel or its historic foes such as Iran.”
US Imperialism’s Decline is the Driving Force of History, Not It’s Growth
by Danny Haiphong
“Wall Street has lost its overall productive character.”
Leftist historians, organizers, and activists have for many decades fallen prey to a historical narrative that positions the United States as the permanent ruling force in the world. Over three centuries of brutal, colonial development has helped support this narrative. The neo-liberal period has further ingrained the idea that US imperialism's racist and capitalist foundation is here to stay. The notion of US imperial invincibility spread even more after the Soviet Union was destabilized in 1991. This historic tragedy reinforced the presumption that anti-imperialism and revolutionary resistance to US hegemony was dead or too weak to stop the expansion of Empire.
In 2015, those who predicted permanent US dominance failed to take into account how the imperialist system creates the conditions for its own demise. This development is two-fold. On the one hand, the exploitation of people for profit results in political and economic crises that debilitates the system's ability to recover. On the other, the experience of exploitation imposed on billions facilitates resistance and demands for justice, liberation, and peace. When imperial crisis meets mass resistance, the heroic struggle of the oppressed people carries revolutionary potential.
Concretely, the decline of US imperialism comes in many forms. One is economic. China's socialist economy has eclipsed the predatory US capitalist arrangement in real terms. US capitalism's Wall Street dominated economy, while maintaining and increasing enormous profits for a shrinking 1 percent, has lost its overall productive character. US-led multinational corporations and Wall Street have attempted to keep and expand their economic dominance through a brutal assault on the oppressed by way of privatization, automation, and repression. This has led to a steep increase in wealth disparity all over the world. In the US, the loss of Black wealth and the growth of Black child poverty over the last three decades are indicators of the costs US capitalism is willing to impart on the exploited in order to keep its rulers rich.
“When imperial crisis meets mass resistance, the heroic struggle of the oppressed people carries revolutionary potential.”
The economic motivation of the ruling class is directly linked to the system's political crises. US imperialism’s global military state is a major component of its current strategy to maintain economic dominance. Washington’s trillion dollar military budget supports apartheid regimes such as Israel and war-driven, terrorist strongholds like Saudi Arabia. US imperialism's war machine also helps finance coups like in Ukraine and proxy wars in nations such as Libya and Syria with deadly consequences for millions. The nearly 1000 military bases the US operates around the world keep private military contractors happy and the world in a constant state of chaos and despair. In the US, mass surveillance and a multi-billion dollar (public and private) Black Mass Incarceration state are a manifestation of imperialism’s military state's chickens coming home to roost. Whether domestic or international, US imperialism’s military apparatus is designed to promote counterinsurgency warfare on any and all legitimate resistance to its rule.
Yet the proliferation of the US military state has created irreconcilable contradictions which have hastened the imperialist system's weakening position in the world. The P5+1 agreement with Iran is a prime example. Since 1953, US imperialism has been hostile to Iranian sovereignty. But Iran's refusal to give up the right to determine its own domestic and international trajectory forced the US to sign a historic agreement to lift economic and military sanctions in exchange for a reduction in Iran's nuclear program. Israel, infuriated by the Iranian victory, demanded and won 1.5 billion dollars more per year in US aid in order to continue to wage war against Iran, Palestine, and the region at large. So while on the one hand US imperialism sees eased relations with Iran as potentially beneficial to its economic interests, on the other Washington’s hands are tied by its binding relationship with Israel's own expansionist goals for the region. In other words, US imperialism can no longer unilaterally impose its will on its compliant allies like Israel or its historic foes such as Iran.
“The nearly 1000 military bases the US operates keep the world in a constant state of chaos and despair.”
The same goes for Syria, Russia, China, Cuba, and a number of other hosts to US imperial warfare. Despite Russia's close economic ties to US imperialism's staunch allies in the EU, Washington has waged a dangerous war with Russia through the means of military encirclement and sanctions. US imperialism is also pushing through the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which would give corporations the ability to sue sovereign governments if their policies impeded profitability. The TPP is the economic policy of US imperialism's broader pivot to Asia that has as its ultimate goal the isolation and destabilization of China. Even still, the US capitalist economy is heavily reliant on China for its attractive investment and trade environment. US imperialism’s war maneuvers against Russia and China contain both potential catastrophe for the world order at large and a sign of decay for the system waging them.
And finally, Syria and Cuba’s resistance to imperialism have made headlines recently for different reasons. Cuba was able to secure an agreement with the US to free the Cuban 5 and ease trade restrictions earlier this year. However, the US maintains the illegal embargo on Cuba and has no intention of allowing the island nation to develop its socialist state in peace. But Cuba’s concrete victory indicates US imperialism’s isolated and unpopular position in the region. In Syria, the national government is regaining ground against foreign sponsored terrorists in Palmyra and other key cities. The US-NATO-Israeli alliance has been supporting various factions inside of Syria since 2011 with hopes of destabilizing the Assad government. US imperialism claims to be fighting the same jihadist militants that it supports in Syria. The reality is that US imperialism needs jihadist terrorists to fulfill its objectives in the region, yet cannot allow them to take power as they did in Libya. This is more than a quagmire. It is a clear sign of US imperialism’s inevitable defeat.
Conclusion
These events coupled with capitalism's economic meltdown make ever clearer the terminal state of the imperial order. In each situation, imperialism has been forced to exhaust its failed strategy or face a loss in geopolitical and economic influence. US imperialism's sponsorship of terrorism has come with a price, as jihadist militants of the ISIS variety threaten to install a system of rule similar to the one imposed in the failed state of Libya. The nuclear agreement with Iran has set back the imperial agenda to destabilize the Islamic Republic. Iran’s diplomatic victory has infuriated Israel and guarantees the Zionist state will do everything in its power to push Washington to violate the agreement. And in the case of Russia and China, US imperialism's dangerous military and economic provocations toward these rising powers threaten to set off a world war scenario. But no matter the consequence, the imperialist system will always opt for chaos if the only other choice is to allow global forces to develop independent of its rule.
The fact that these are the system's only choices, however, points to much more than just imperialism's self-imposed demise. Credit, and more importantly solidarity, must be extended to the global forces in active resistance to imperial rule. In many ways, it has been ordinary oppressed people who have brought imperial rule to its natural limits. Syrians and Iranians refuse to relinquish national sovereignty. Russia and China continue to chart their own development paths through huge, mass supported projects in BRICS and the New Silk Road. Furthermore, Latin America has been transformed by mass revolutionary movements led by poor and working people who have grown tired of the dispossession and misery of neo-liberal capitalism and imperialism. It is from the struggle of ordinary, working class and oppressed people where true transformation lies. Imperialism’s decline provides the opportunity.
“The imperialist system will always opt for chaos if the only other choice is to allow global forces to develop independent of its rule.”
This is often misunderstood in the US due to the weak position of the left. The left in the US is often confused with supporters of Obama, Bernie Sanders, or whichever Democratic Party representative happens to be most useful in playing the progressive wing of imperialism. Oppressed people and working class people in the US are dehumanized by the corporate media and thus are rarely seen as capable of revolutionary transformation. Furthermore, imperialism's assault on both living standards and ideas has created a great degree of separation between revolutionary movements of the past and the current struggle against white supremacy, sexism, and imperialism. This has reinforced a feeling of isolation among leftist forces in addition to the chauvinism and racism many on the left carry with them when addressing peoples of the Third World. The development of a revolutionary future inside of the US drawn borders is dependent on the efforts of committed individuals and organizations to reconnect the struggle against issues of white supremacy and Empire to the global revolution of the past and present.
Danny Haiphong is an organizer for Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST) in Boston. He is also a regular contributor to Black Agenda Report. Danny can be reached at [email protected] and FIST can be reached at [email protected]m
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