American Decline Will Be Worse Than U.S. Intelligence Agencies Fear
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
To obtain a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio visit the BA Radio archive page.
“Once the United States loses its artificial advantages,
its decline will be far more profound than Washington’s intelligence agencies
can fathom.”
American intelligence agencies project that the United
States will lose its position of world dominance by the year 2025. Their report
is titled “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,”
and is far more pessimistic about the United States’
future role in the world than a report written in 2004. Back then, when the
Iraq War was still young, U.S. intelligence agencies believed American
dominance would continue through the year 2020. What a difference has been
wrought by the revolt of developing nations against U.S and European global
economic dictatorship, the unraveling of America’s own economy, and two major
American wars of attempted conquest.
U.S. intelligence analysts now foresee a world in which
America is the “single most powerful actor,” but where Washington will no
longer be in a position to impose its will on the entire planet.
This is a curious conclusion, because it in effect
predicts the end of U.S. imperialism, which is a system maintained only by
artificial U.S. economic advantages backed up by an overpowering military –
more costly than all the other militaries in the world, combined. Once the
United States loses its artificial advantages, such as dollar dominance in the
world monetary system, or the capacity to militarily seize the resources of
other nations, its decline will be far more profound than Washington’s
intelligence agencies can fathom. When the mechanisms of imperial dominance
fail, the headquarters countries of Europe and North America will lose their
capacity to extort or outright seize most of the value of the world’s
resources.
Since the health of their economies is inextricably
connected to unfair advantage and other legacies of Euro-American imperialism,
the end of that imperial system will cause convulsions that will rock the
so-called “western world.” We may well be seeing the beginnings of the Great
Unraveling, in the form of the current economic meltdown.
“The report predicts
‘widening gaps between rich and poor, the uneven impact of global warming,’ and
food and water scarcities.”
There should be little doubt that America’s ability to
bludgeon the rest of the world into economic submission, is over. Unless
Washington is willing to roll the dice militarily to hold on to its advantages
by force – a doomed project, but one that American ruling circles may believe
is their only option – the economic dislocations caused by imperial collapse
will have far deeper repercussions than U.S. intelligence analysts are capable
of imagining.
The report also predicts that Al Qaeda’s influence in the
world will decay due to its “unachievable strategic objectives, inability
to attract broad-based support and [its] self-destructive actions.” Actually, those same words can be used to
describe Uncle Sam’s problems in holding on to world dominance. The report’s
author claims that “the appeal of terrorism is waning.” But what do these
American spooks mean by “terrorism.” Certainly Al Qaeda is a terrorist
organization. But the Americans, like the European colonizers in decline, have
applied the terror label to virtually every national liberation group that has
opposed them. The report predicts “widening gaps between rich and poor, the
uneven impact of global warming,” and food and water scarcities – conditions
that are largely the result of United States policies.
If U.S. imperialism loses its grip on the world – as it
must, and as the U.S. intelligence report seems to predict – then huge flocks
of chickens will be coming home to roost in America, between now and the year
2025.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted
at [email protected].
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