The Chief of Staff hints as much:
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs hints at military combat deployment “in our own neighborhood.” GEN. DAN CAINE: “ We haven’t had a lot of American combat power in our own neighborhood; I suspect that’s probably gonna change. We’ll see what we’re ordered to do.”
Venezuela is the current target, but there have been rumblings about Colombia, and you just know every slavering knuckle dragging neocon wants another crack at Cuba.
China gets a lot of resources from Latin America, and they want more. America regards Latin America as its backyard, the place where it has a right to overthrow governments at its whim, and where no other great power is allowed.
Obviously most South American countries not currently run by US aligned regimes aren’t too thrilled with the danger America constantly represents if they do anything the US doesn’t like. So they’ve been increasing their ties to China.
America is weakening. It’s falling behind China militarily, economically and technologically, and it will continue to do so. What it does still have, however, is far more military projection ability than China, and Latin America is nearby.
The US can’t offer Latin American nations as good an economic deal as China: America doesn’t need as much resources, its goods are more expensive, it charges more for loans and it no longer build bridges, ports, hospitals, railroads and so on.
Any sane Latin American country is going to want to move under China’s economic sphere, and most of them have. Even Argentina, an American lackey. (Milei talked big about cutting trade with China till he got in power, then he backed down fast.)
Worse, China has cheap effective drones and far better missiles than America, including anti-ship missiles. Plus air defense systems.
So the window for using military force to get friendly governments in charge of Latin American countries is closing. The longer the US waits, the harder it will be and before long it’ll be impossible. Bring those aircraft carriers close enough to be useful, start a war, and you’ll eventually lose one once China has finished arming its allies. (Plus Russia will happily sell as well, especially once the Ukraine war is over. Revenge is a dish best served cold and with a side of missile.)
This, it should be clear, is a desperation move. It is an attempt by a great power in serious decline to hold on to some remnants of its empire. It is part of a general move to try and tax vassals at a ferocious rate (that’s what the 5% of GDP on military goods is, a tax. Buy American weapons!) At the same time the US is trying to remove industry from its vassals and re-shore it. These efforts will succeed for a while and fail in the longer run, but they’re what the US has, since it can’t actually generate real growth (not fake GDP growth, but the real thing) itself any more.
In the medium run, the US will not be able to keep the Monroe doctrine running. The military advantage has just moved too much to new weapons which are cheap and effective at damaging the US military projection stack. If the US couldn’t even keep the sea lanes open against the Ansar Allah (the Houthis), when real countries, even developing ones, get their hands on enough Chinese and Russian missiles, drones and air defense, it’s all over.
Then, slowly, the Chinese will overthrow most of the puppet states, because they just have more resources and offer a better deal and will be seen as friendly. Countries near China may be scared of it, countries in Latin America know they’re far enough away that what it offers is a far better deal with far fewer chains than the US can, or ever did. (The same is true of Africa.)
This all falls under “Empires do not go quiet to that long night”. It could be very bloody. But the end is not in question. I doubt they’ll even hold on to Mexico. The way they’re going, America might eventually even lose control of Canada. Incompetence, greed and denial are powerful drugs, and America is high on all of them.
The long night approaches for the American Empire. Other than Europe and Japan’s comprador leaders, few will miss it.
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ibaien
this tips over far too much into the classic IW “rationally this is what ought to happen” tropes. LATAM has been, and will continue to be, governed by gringo-passing light-skinned euro-identified oligarchs who owe little (or nothing) to their citizens. once in awhile a populist is elected but that’s just a pressure release valve; nothing changes. china’s going to get shut out of this party if push comes to shove, and the russians spent all their chips on winning UKR. yanquis can’t run the world anymore but they can still bring massive power (ballot or bullet) to bear on their continental neighbor states. truth be told, if i were playing this game of RISK i’d be moving armies home too.
Mark Pontin
Iran will kick off again soon, too. I mention this because something I can’t yet figure out is just how reduced in numbers the U.S. missile arsenal may now be between [A.] four years of Ukraine and also the last Israel-Iran go-round when White House advisors were frantically calling around the world to round up every last Patriot for that, and [B.] the fact that China is now metering out its rare earth exports to starve the U.S. MIC of weapons-making capability.
Assuming there’ll be history books, the historians will have a field day with all this, because effectively it’s a low-key WW3-scale global pincer movement by Russia, China, and others against the Moron Empire.
Anyway, if anyone has any guesses or source on the U.S. missile question, put them out there.
As for “Russia will happily sell as well, especially once the Ukraine war is over. Revenge is a dish best served cold and with a side of missile”, as you say: expect to see more reports of Wagner cropping here and there in South America, and not just Venezuela.
spud
this simply cannot be over come. when your policies directly destroy your economic, skills and technological advantages so that a few parasites can get richer, and allowed to fester for 32 plus years, then there is not much left to project with.
the dim wits who did it blame china and the american people.
and trump is blowing it big time. he has embraced almost all of the disastrous failed polices of the last 32 years, except free trade. his trade polices now are just one way free trade, everyone else pays.
police states(fascism), that allows capital over sovereignty, civil society, and labor, always fails.
https://www.aeaweb.org/research/trade-deals-economic-political
Research Highlights Podcast
July 2, 2024
The political consequences of NAFTA
Jiwon Choi and Gavin Wright discuss the economic and political fallout of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Tyler Smith
“We found that counties that were more exposed to Mexican import competition experienced a significant decline in employment, roughly 5 to 7 log points by year 2000 compared to the least exposed counties.
Jiwon Choi”
“Wright: I would say probably the single most important component of our answer is we are specifically not trying to draw direct policy conclusions about trade policy from this one episode. In that respect, I think we are following in the footsteps of David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson, who wrote about the China shock. We’re saying that they’re right about the pattern of that shock, but it started earlier. It really started with NAFTA. And NAFTA was far larger in terms of the loss of manufacturing jobs than economists predicted at the time and in terms of the length of the effect. But if there were any policy conclusion, it would be that if you’re going to do a policy of this kind, you should be much more sensitive to the downside to those who are on the losing end. Society as a whole should be more aware of these costs and their significance, and more prepared to do something about it.”
mago
We’ll definitely see a shift and lots of blood and gore as the Beast thrashes about in its death throes. I’ve commented on this in passing here and there.
The decline and death of the empire is going to hurt the Zionist experiment big time. Good riddance to bad rubbish, although there’s going to be extensive suffering before it’s all buried in that great landfill in the depths of hell.
Ian Welsh
A large part of why Latin America has had bad leaders is the US.
tharry
One major element of the Monroe Doctrine is never mentioned, at least nowadays. It states that no foreign power would be allowed to interfere in our “backyard” i.e. from the Canadian arctic circle to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. AND the US would stay out of the European backyard as well. A lot has changed since John Quincy Adam’s wrote it in 1823.
Mark Pontin
Ian W: “A large part of why Latin America has had bad leaders is the US.”
That’s understating the matter rather uncharacteristically for you, Ian. The truth is, over the last century the US has installed some of the most murderous, psychopathic, outright evil sons of bitches who ever walked the planet as los jefes down there.
James Jesus Angleton collecting Nazis and Fascists as WW2 ended in order to then run Operation Gladio-style efforts throughout Europe which would assassinate and torture communists there looks like a light-weight comedy by comparison.
Eric Anderson
What, was it around Covid that I predicted this to much nashing of teeth among the commentariat?
That, push come to shove with China/Russia the US would just take the resources to the north and south because it’s they’re the most resource rich and unexploited chunks of geography on the planet.
Once past the moralizing (which we crossed that Rubicon a while ago now) it’s just cold, hard, Realpolitik.
We’re not only watching the fall of the USA. We’re watching the fall of civilization. Because, it won’t just be climate change that does us. It won’t just be war that does us. Won’t be famine. Won’t be pestilence. It’ll be all of the above all at once.
As the USA goes, it takes the rest of the world with it.
We are living Gibson’s jackpot.
It’s just what “they’ll” do.
Jan Wiklund
If Yanis Varoufakis is right, the deadly threat to US is the growing global use of CIPS. SWIFT charges 2% of the transferred mony, CIPS charges 1%. SWIFT takes three days while CIPS takes a second. And because SWIFT takes three days users have to insure against currency changes, which costs 2 % more. So, for simple business reasons, CIPS is now overtaking SWIFT, and the demand for dollars will end. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKElDSBiPdM.
Of course, SWIFT will update somewhat. But if the demand for dollars – the “exorbitant privilege” – will end; US will not afford its overgrown military, and it will have to pay its debts. So I can’t see how they will be any threat to Latin America. Perhaps during a very few years, until the truth dawns upon the US politicians and they realize that they will have to live within their means.
Ian Welsh
The end of dollar privilege is something I’ve been talking about for over 20 years and a lot in the last couple years, and it is, indeed, the second most important thing. (The first is losing the actual manufacturing/tech lead. Everything flows from that.)
KT Chong
In the 1950s–1970s, the U.S. carried out destructive interventionism across East Asia. It bombed or invaded multiple countries and backed coups or insurgencies: Korea (1950–1953), Vietnam (1965–1973), Cambodia (1969–1970), Laos (1964–1973), Indonesia (1958), Myanmar/Burma (1950s), and more.
That went on until Vietnam defeated and humiliated the U.S. The Vietnamese forced American forces to run and retreat from East Asia — and that defeat significantly curtailed U.S. interventionism in the region. America’s first major military defeat also marked the collapse of the “domino theory” framework that had driven U.S. intervention for decades.
That break from U.S. interventionism and domination — in my opinion — gave East Asia the peace it needed to develop and grow. The results speak for themselves: the rise of the Four Asian Tigers, the ascendency of China, and the growth of many ASEAN nations (Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.). Even Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan — though they remain under American influence — truly began their boom after the Vietnam War and America’s pullback from the region, which resulted in an era of peace from U.S. destructive interventionism.
Since Obama’s second term (2013–2016), the U.S. has repeatedly attempted a “(re-)pivot to Asia.” However, fiscal and structural realities have kept the U.S. bogged down in the Middle East and Europe. Meanwhile, China has grown too powerful for the U.S. to have free rein to run amok in East Asia.
My hypothesis: the same needs to happen in Latin America. A Latin American country would need to decisively defeat America in a conflict and force a retreat — a defeat so humiliating that the U.S. would (mostly) stay away for the decades that follow. Only then could the region gain the peace and time needed to break out of the vicious cycle of U.S. interventionism and domination. As long as they remain under the boots of the U.S. and its “Monroe/Donroe Doctrine,” they’ll stay trapped in third-world status. They will never truly rise.
KT Chong
This is also where I part ways with Lee Kuan Yew — the legendary founding father of modern Singapore, whom I greatly admire. He credited East Asia’s economic rise to the stabilizing presence of the United States. But when I look at the timeline, I see something different. I see the U.S. retreat as the real enabler of East Asia’s rise. The region didn’t begin to flourish until after America was forced out, after Washington’s interventionism was broken. That’s when East Asian nations finally had the peace and space they needed to grow.
Mark Pontin
Eric Anderson: “As the USA goes, it takes the rest of the world with it.”
Meh. You must be an American. That sh*thole kleptocracy simply isn’t that important. That said, the trend is that the human race is seemingly replaying the events of one hundred years ago with alarming fidelity (and stupidity).
A global crash in the next year or three on the scale of 1929 — as unlike the situation in 2008 China, despite Ian’s boosterism, is also headed for something similar and so won’t help forestall some of the worst contingencies as it did in 2008 — followed by wars a la the 1930s-40s as the elites of collapsing capitalist nation-states try to survive by ‘military keynesianism’ (very profitable for elites at the expense their nations) and then imperial aggression.
‘Naturally, the common people don’t want war … but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.’
Hermann Goering a century ago. But see also the EU and the likes of Anduril and Palantir in the US now.
ibaien
@ KT
“Only then could the region gain the peace and time needed to break out of the vicious cycle of U.S. interventionism and domination”
as LATAM moves now from at least the bulwark of catholic social movements to evangelical hard-right get-rich grifters, the idea that without US meddling they’d somehow turn into functional liberal democracies is laughable. chile is as close as that benighted continent is gonna get, and even there it’s tenuous at best. if the donroe doctrine (great neologism) sticks, we’ll see more decades of white-passing autocrats bludgeoning the vast working classes to rape the environment and sell resources north. if it doesn’t stick, we’ll see more decades of white-passing autocrats bludgeoning the vast working classes to rape the environment and sell resources east. chavismo failed, brazil is just gonna whipsaw between fake left and fake right, argentina is a perpetual basket case, and the rest of the major states are mired in ceaseless corruption scandals fueled by narco-wealth.
Curt Kastens
I agree with Eric’s comment. We are not watching the fall of the United States. We are watching the fall of industrial civilization. Even China and Russia are going to get hammered by climate change, resource deplition, wars, and hyper inflation all at once.
Curt Kastens
One other thing not realated to the Monroe Doctrine, but, to the collapse of America and the Industrial Society world wide. I see Iran going through major upheavals in 2926 due to a lack of water. I can easily imagine that if the Iranian leadership thinks that they are going to fall due to this problem that they try to take Israel out with them by launching every thing that they have with the range to reach Isreal. And if I can imagine Iran doing this so can the Israelis and the Americans. Therefore I can easily imagine the Americans and the Israelis launching some kind of pre emptive strike to try to blunt the attack that Iran would launch due to the collapse of it country due to lake of water.
There is no need to say anything about desalination saving Iran. That takes large amounts of energy and pumping through pipelines over long distances takes energy to. That is energy that Iran can not spare. If Iran becomes a failed state Russia and China will be hurt the most.
Mark Level
A great post as expected, Ian, and great comments by many, especially Mark Pontin and “the Moron Empire”, the Empire’s carnage across Latin America via fascist symps installed in power, people who trained at the “School of the Americas” in torture, rape and mass-murder, with a side of looting. Freedumb, Baby!!
I’m optimistic that the Mandarin Intellectuals of the Anglo-American Empire have thoroughly mentally de-evolved since even the days of the US’s humiliating defeat in Vietnam, referenced by KT Chong.
If one goes back to that time, the only one (or main one) who got it right was Daniel Ellsberg, who read the actual data the Mandarin class put into the Pentagon Papers, saw the writing on the wall and tried to let the proles know what the Bean Counters had known for years, that the US had NO prospect of “victory” in Vietnam. And overall the highly-touted “geniuses” like Robert McNamara might’ve done a good job at Ford Motors, but their imperial arrogance made them just dig deeper and deeper quagmires in Vietnam. Nobody learned nothing from the later “Powell Doctrine” about taking care in the US’s endless interventions, either.
KTC also mentions the important “pivot to China” that Obama-era land-grabbers envisaged, but though the latest NatSec “vision” TrumpCo is proposing is never going to happen, because even though the CIA’s Eldridge Colby thinks that’s the way to go– & he is among the few “smart” ones in an administration full of drunks, Rhoid-ragers, rapists, etc. Pete Hegseth alone embodying all of the preceding.
I am optimistic on this one, because indeed, the Empire is being led with the Proverbial Dead Hand of Imperial arrogance, so over 90% of the time, the dumbest decisions will be made. The Ideology that “we are the best, exceptional!!” is a powerful drug for these idiots.
And here’s another wrinkle– the Trump Junta’s “ideology” is pretty sketchy and all over the place, but at least domestically it is clear that Oberstormfuhrer Stephen Miller’s racist ideology that the browns and the blacks are inferior and must be eliminated is central. So how does this translate to creating juntas in Mexico, Central and South America? Do they really imagine they can get the majority of the publics in many of those countries to hate themselves and say, oh, let’s welcome the white-skinned Jefes in, they will treat us well? Plus of course every US-linked Quisling regime will openly be stealing everything that’s not nailed down. Marina Correa Machado brags that this is what she will do!! And she received a Nobel Piss Prize from the Swedes for this!! Brilliant.
Thank you to Mark P. for including that Goebbels quote, it is indeed a classic and sometimes when I search for it, it’s hard to find.
The Europeans are now more insane than even our DimmieCrap pols who are all in for endless war in Eurasia, “as long as it takes!” “to the last Ukrainian!”, well that day’s here soon, I’m no fan of the Repugs, but their base seems to be a little brighter and willing to set some limits to the Imperial Madness. So Ursala, Merz and those multi-generational Nazi fans are demanding that Europe re-arm (cut all the social spending and forced deindustrialization also on the menu) to “confront” the evil Russkie Orcs in 2029 or 2030. Well, I think the public in many of those countries as they starve, freeze, and lose their health care (hey, gotta emulate the US Masters) may actually revolt.
Who’s going to fill the ranks and be the stormtroopers? Will they be strong and powerful, or drug-addled and despairing as much of the US populace now are? I happened to watch an interview with the National “Guardsman” who was “serving” with the woman who was gunned down by that Afghan, CIA-run false flag dude. He was illiterate and couldn’t speak standard English, sounded like someone from the satiric “Hee-haw!” program back in the day.
Someone’s not “bringing their best” and claiming that’s true of the Mexicans, or the Somalis, or all the other refugees forced to come here when our mighty Empire bombs and destroys their homelands. . . well that is pure projection. The chickens are coming home to roost, Empire will consume itself, eventually.
Eric Anderson
Mark Pontin says:
“Meh. You must be an American. That sh*thole kleptocracy simply isn’t that important.” Guilty as charged on the first count.
However, that doesn’t mean I’m ignorant (ahem).
Which, these days, one has to work really hard to ignore(ance) the “Jackpot” / “Polycrisis.”
The U.S., if cornered, will fight.
When the fight happens, it’ll go global (as you note). And when it goes global the seven horsemen of the apocalypse will descend like history has never experienced. Ever heard of tipping points? The planet simply doesn’t have the resilience/redundancy anymore.
This narrow focus on geopolitical winners and losers in the age climate catastrophe is infantile.
But, I’m certain you know better than Gibson and KSR.
Sure, the U.S. is just going to “go quiet into the night” after it’s military defeat and everyone will celebrate and live happily ever after under China’s benevolent reign 🤣
Curt Kastens
Not sure if this is the best place to link this video or if the page on US Dollor hegemony will be the best place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMdJwvFVJu4
Curt Kastens
So this morning I saw reports about the US siezing a Venezuelan oil tanker. This fits in perfectly with the link that I placed above, Can it be said that the US is now playing its force projection Ace card. Or is it to early to say that?