"The United States is inclined to regard global politics from the point of view of a struggle for global leadership," [Alexey Pushkov of the Russian State Duma lower house International Affairs Committee] said. But fears of losing this leadership had become an obsession for Barack Obama and candidates running for presidency, he added."US suffers from ‘fading leadership syndrome’ — Russian lawmaker." Russian & India Report, 10/14/15. First published at TASS."I’d call this a syndrome of fading leadership," Pushkov observed. "The US is striving to view all processes through the prism of rivalry between the world’s leading countries and, first of all, through the prism of personal rivalry between the American and the Russian presidents."
Obviously, Pushkov isn't very bright, or at least is unobservant. Obama's is a syndrome of refusing leadership, of disavowing interest in the rest of the world. His only reaction to other countries' leaders is when they disagree with him. His ego simply cannot accept or tolerate that, so he works to destroy those leaders, having his minions interfere with the elections in Israel in an attempt to unseat Netanyahu, by giving Iran secret information on the specifications and capabilities of Israel's nuclear weapons, by snubbing Netanyahu and his ministers when they seek to meet with him.
ReplyDeleteNow that Putin is acting in a more responsible fashion than Obama, seeking to assist Assad in defeating ISIS and the Al-Qaeda groups to whom Obama has been funding and delivering tons of weapons and ammunition, Putin has become an "enemy" of Obama as well. Of course, there is more than likely an element of Obama realizing both Netanyahu and Putin fought for their countries in their respective militaries (Netanyahu definitely saw action, although I may be wrong about Putin) and certainly both leaders are real men, not pansied, girly, effeminate wimps such as Obama.
Obama has never been interested in driving America toward global leadership. He has been steering the Ship of State _away_ from leadership, in fact has been aiming it at the rocks and reefs on the shoreline since he took office. If it weren't for his petty, childish inability to accept criticism, to being told "No", he would probably ignore them both.
Or deal with them secretly, as I am sure he does with China. I can't imagine I am the only one who wonders why China has been so quiet lately.
I think what you say is true but I also think that Pushkov correctly identifies the central theme of American foreign policy, the Brzesinskian idea that the only possible world order is one in which the U.S. is absolutely dominant. I don't know if "full spectrum dominance" that the U.S. military likes to talk about has its root in this thinking but it is consistent with it. I think there's something more at work than that Obama doesn't like criticism or opposition. Sensible people under him would find a way to mute, deflect, muffle, or diffuse decisions made by Obama on that score. Officials can engage in creative foot dragging at times and that would be one of those times when one can give thanks for bureaucratic "inertia."
ReplyDeleteThe prevalence of the anti-Russian rhetoric and the petty unwillingness to cooperate in Syria -- not to mention the egregious sanctions imposed because Putin reacted to Nuland's and the ambassador's meddling in Ukraine -- has deeper roots in mere Obama pique. There really is a policy for us to rule the roost. The Russians and Chinese, however, are powerful countries in their own right and a U.S. approach that implicitly if not explicitly announces to them that the U.S. can operate freely around the world but they cannot is a dangerous one. The Chinese move to building islands might be objectionable on grounds of international law or the law of the sea (same thing?) but it's not entirely unreasonable on their part when U.S. navy ships have operated closer to China than those islands, I presume. Maybe we have legality on our side but it seems a bit much for us, certainly from their POV, that we aggressively asserted informal jurisdiction over the Western Hemisphere for over a century and now have a ton of troops stationed numerous places around the world. We may even be encouraging the Uighurs in Xinjiang though I am only speculating there.
Pushkov does leave China out of his statement, it's true. That would make it inaccurate if China is as much of a threat as Russia supposedly is in Obama's mind. But Russia is being demonized in a way that China isn't and Obama may have some secret understanding with the Chinese. We are joined at the hip with the Chinese in a way that we are not with the Russians.
Still, you are quite correct that Obama's uninterested in furthering American interests. Quite the contrary. His fundamental transformation was and is about destruction not improvement.
To harmonize these two accurate assessments, I have to think there is a subterranean foreign policy/MIC establishment that is pushing the dominance idea that merely tolerates what they have to with Barry and his little Muslim agenda.
cont'd...
My mental wheels spin at trying to infer anything from China's silence. China's busy hedging its bets by buying lots of gold to protect itself if the dollar declines and it is toying with getting oil trading to be yuan-based, I understand. They show they have an understanding that you don't have to put aircraft carriers off of San Diego and involve yourself in petty conflicts in the Balkans to win. If they are simply biding their time and waiting for the U.S. to overextend itself, they have chosen a wise course of (in)action. At this point we are borrowing money from them and Japan to keep those task forces steaming in the S. China Sea and those bombers bombing in Syria. Talk about overextended!
ReplyDeleteBtw, on the "full spectrum dominance" policy, it sounds comforting but it reminds me of the military maxim that he who defends everywhere defends nowhere. IEDs, TOW missiles, and MANPADs seem to be serious threats to modern armies that they have not yet been able to counter effectively.
When all is said and done, however, I have to say that U.S. foreign policy is marked by one thing and one thing only -- incoherence. Whoever's in charge, they're wasting our blood and treasure while bankrupting the country and failing to defend us from an invasion from the third world. How cool is that?