by David Webb

The decline of great powers is interesting, yet also terrifying, to behold. We are witnessing US decline, but we should not forget that a wounded animal remains dangerous. When I was young, the theory was that the USSR, then in decline, would “lash out” in a bid to forestall inevitable decline. An article in the New Times in 1981 by Admiral Stansfield Turner, U.S.N., retired, and a former Director of Central Intelligence, sums up the lash-out theory as follows:

But a different analysis of Moscow’s difficulties could lead to a conclusion far different from the one espoused by most Europeans. As economic requirements push up against military spending, and as political tensions within the Warsaw Pact grow more serious, the Soviet leaders could be tempted to establish footholds around the world before their military advantages ebb and before our renewed defense program takes effect. The objective, according to this “lashout’” theory, would be not only to win all they can while they can but to divert domestic attention from increased austerity at home.

The Russians could take military action in remote regions alone, but this would hardly achieve their objective. They could, as a second alternative, lash out on the central front in Europe, but that would be risky indeed. A third option, an attack on Europe’s flanks, or on Iran or Pakistan, would also involve serious hazards. Thus, while the possibility of some desperate move of this nature cannot be ruled out entirely, it seems unlikely—at least during the next few years, when the Russians will almost certainly be faced with the unsettling difficulties of a succession to the aging leadership of Leonid I. Brezhnev and his men.

But the USSR did not lash out. It meekly agreed to withdraw from millions of square kilometres of territory in Eastern Europe in exchange for verbal—firmly worded, but verbal—promises that NATO, an anti-Russian military alliance, would not move one inch to the East. These promises were ultimately worth about as much as Neville Chamberlain’s piece of paper from Herr Hitler in 1938 (at least Chamberlain did seek to get something down in writing).

To lose primacy or hegemony or superpower status is traumatic to any country. Russia is still living through this, and struggles with the legacy of countless missteps by its diplomats and military strategists both before Putin and during Putin’s rule.

Britain gamely agreed to vacate its position on the world stage, aided by the claim that we had a special relationship with the Americans, who were “our cousins”. Our cousins were still in charge—and so it was kind of like a continuation—or was it? Now we find that America has followed demographic policies designed, specifically designed, to remove its European-descended majority, and the policies followed since 1965 will come to fruition in the 2040s in a new “majority-minority” populace. I use the word “populace”, because I believe, after consulting dictionaries, that it refers to the population as opposed to the government. It will take a few more decades for the elite themselves to become mostly Hispanic … Will “our cousins” then be in charge?

In any case, Pax Americana allowed Britain to show a little bit of grace in acceding to the reality that Britain could no longer be the main world power. The US is unlikely to show any such grace in giving way to China—after all, the US elite are unlikely to agree that the Chinese are “their cousins”, although foolish statements by Mr Trump recently suggest that America is open to Chinese immigration by the million (will these people be interned like the Japanese were in the event of a US-China war?). Now we see that it is the US, not the USSR, that will “lash out” in its dying throes as an Empire, but hopefully thereby it will hasten the end of its hegemony. Let’s look at 1) the Ukraine; 2) Gaza; 3) Iran; and 4) China.

Provoking the Ukraine war

It is not a serious argument to claim that the Ukraine war was not provoked. It has been being prepared for decades, dating back to the attempt to promise the Ukraine membership in NATO in 2008, which Angela Merkel opposed. The overthrow of a democratically elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich, in 2014 was supported by the US. Apparently our support for democracy doesn’t really mean much when it comes down to it. Victoria Nuland, a rebarbative schemer in the State Department, stated in a tapped phone call that the US had spent US$5bn on the Maidan protests in Kiev, and wanted Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who she affectionally called “Yats”, to become prime minister. And so he did.

Mr Trump, who claims to be a peace president, proudly relates how he armed the Ukraine during his first term. Clearly it was a misstep by Putin, an extremely severe one, to sit by and allow this to happen. The current Ukraine war is the result of this. A country, the US, that claims to recognize the emergence of a more multipolar world, is doing everything it can to stop that from happening. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said the following:

It’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not—that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and then you have rogue states like Iran and North Korea you have to deal with.

And yet Rubio is part of a supposedly pro-peace government that is generating war after war in a bid to stop a multi-polar world from establishing itself.

Stooping to outright genocide

Let’s look at Gaza. There is nothing great about attempting to kidnap children and old people to use as hostages—no-one should claim this was a valid form of resistance to Israel—but clearly the October 7th 2023 raid has been used to smash the people of Gaza totally, so totally that it is amazing that the Western press support this. Did Britain during the Troubles in Northern Ireland use 2,000-lb bombs on civilian areas inhabited by Irish nationalists? Did it even use the death penalty on terrorists? No, it did not. To kill what is likely to be a six-figure number of civilians in Gaza loosely justified by the October 7th raid is beyond all civilized norms. Some Israeli snipers have reported that they stopped counting after killing more than 200 Palestinians (each).

Clearly, Israel has US support for this. It is not just Benjamin Netanyahu who should be arraigned before international courts, but US and UK leaders such as Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, etc. Britain is a bit-player, but continues to export munitions to Israel. I think we should acknowledge that leading North American Jews have, to their credit, spoken out against the genocide, including Jeffrey Sachs, Norman Finkelstein, Gabor Maté and his sons (including Aaron Maté), Max Blumenthal, etc, and so we should think in terms of an anti-war coalition including people of all origins.

The problem for me is that we are allied with the US, based on a very threadbare idea that there is such a thing as “the West” that has a common interest and that the Americans are our fellow Anglo-Saxons. Odious foreign policy decisions are being made in Washington, and Britain is reluctant to speak out clearly against them. The finding of the International Court of Justice that there is plausible evidence of genocide in Gaza should have led us to reassess our relationship with America. And it is really unacceptable for Britain to prioritize a trade deal with America over that. We need to become neutral and maintain good relations with all sides, if possible.

Aggression against Iran

Now we have what can only be described as a disgusting and wholly unprovoked act of aggression against Iran by Israel, with US assistance. Mr Trump continues to mouth Israeli claims that Iran was pursuing a nuclear bomb—Netanyahu has been saying this for several decades—and all 18 of the US intelligence agencies have determined this is not true. Confronted with this information, Mr Trump said in recent days that he didn’t care. He is a repellent and bumptious individual, and we are destroying our reputation on the world stage by our relationship with him. Apparently, the war won’t stop until Iran agrees to do everything Mr Trump says. Now Mr Trump has told all 9.5m people in Teheran to get out of the city. No one has to obey such an instruction—which mirrors similar instructions given to the Palestinians in Gaza city—and the fact that such an instruction has been given does not justify any carnage that is subsequently wreaked on the city. Should everyone in London simply leave London if we get a threat like that?

Iran is not an exporter of terrorism in the Middle East. Nearly all terrorist incidents in the recent decades have been by al-Qaeda and Islamic State—and al-Qaeda is a creation of the CIA, set up to destabilize Soviet-held Afghanistan in the 1980s. The US weaponizes terrorist groups in the Middle East to achieve its goals. They might themselves have different aims, but the situation where groups seek support from sponsor states whose aims are different from theirs is par for the course when it comes to terrorism. Anyone who has watched the 24 TV series will recognize the pattern. Islamic State may have thought it would be allowed to forge a long-term statelet in Syria, even though the US only wanted to use it to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad government. By contrast, Iran was part of an axis of resistance to Israel, and its main proxy was Hezbollah in Lebanon, but this is not exactly a terrorist group, but a resistance movement, as is Hamas in Gaza. Are Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and others expected to accept everything that happens to them with no resistance?

It seems likely that Netanyahu wants to weaken every Middle Eastern state before the US declines further, and if possible get rid of the Palestinians. Everything is proceeding along the lines of a US plan devised in 2001 after the 9/11 false-flag attack to attack seven Muslim countries in five years:

A former commander of NATO’s forces in Europe, Clark claims he met a senior military officer in Washington in November 2001 who told him the Bush administration was planning to attack Iraq first before taking action against Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.

Iran is the last of the seven, although the plan has taken longer than five years to execute.

What do you do when the hegemon itself is malevolent? US culture has a high tolerance for lack of sincerity, in effect evil married to self-righteousness. Christianity was always meant to be the antidote to such an approach—we recall that the Pharisees were condemned by Our Lord as whited sepulchres in the New Testament—and yet now it is the supposed Christians and Evangelicals in the US that are calling for more war.

Dragging us into an unwinnable war against China?

And so we come to China. The US wants to deal with Iran, and get that out of the way, and then turn to China. No doubt the Western press will describe any future clash between the US and China as provoked by the Chinese. Britain, with its few operational ships, would, stupidly, take part in any conflict with China. We should stay well out. Australia should not side with the ultimate losers in any conflict with China either. Even if the US could win a war against China now—which is far from certain—what about in 20 years’ time? China’s rise cannot be stopped, although maybe it could be slowed a little. No country should assist the US in going to war with China. The Taiwanese, like the Ukrainians, should avoid being used as a pawn in a Washington power game, and just agree a long-term settlement with China now.

A Taiwan conflict might also see a simultaneous North Korean attack on South Korea. These conflicts appear to be the left-over detritus of World War 2, and eventually they will be decided in a way not to the liking of the US. As China and North Korea are not attacking the US, there is no reason why the US should not stop trying to inflame these conflicts. And yet, here we are, seeing the declining hegemon lash out everywhere.

We should be neutral, or we could even consider allying with China and Russia. As America will be majority-minority in less than 20 years’ time, there is no mileage in this alliance with the US, which will see us dragged into every little conflict by people who will in fact no longer be our cousins. We need to get out of this. By leaving NATO, we could then simply refuse to raise our defence spending to 5% of GDP. We can’t afford it and don’t need to do it. We don’t have obvious enemies, apart from our choice to antagonize Russia and China. The process of reconsidering our international alliances has not yet begun—and is in fact now urgent.