America is tired. Tired of maintaining its global empire, tired of waging war. The military campaigns directed in Afghanistan and Iraq and the war on terrorism of the 2000s, dotted with tactical defeatshave taught the USA not to expose itself with its military in “exotic” conflict theaters, preferring the so-called proxy war. Translated: I pay and arm someone else to fight for me.
But it is always the USA that wages war, with the NATO helmet, to Russia and Iran. At first through theUkraineto the second via Israel. However, if a third front were to open in the most strategic quadrant of the world, the Indo-Pacific, Washington would no longer be able to sustain its effort to maintain global hegemony. In short, US forces can no longer fight on multiple fronts at the same time and there are those who say that American hegemony is now at an end. The great rival, the Chinahe knows it and he is preparing.
Against Russia and China: the difficulties of the USA
The growing Russian threats towards NATO countries and China’s large military investments highlight this a strategic problem for the United States: the need to be able to deter or potentially combat two major adversaries in two very different regions of the world at the same time. No longer with a proxy war, but with the military that Washington has at its disposal. Moscow and Beijing in fact, they spend a significant part of their economic production on defense budgets, with the declared objective of undermine US military superiority. If it were to be undermined, the latter would no longer be able to protect Americans abroad, allies and the freedom to use the sea, the skies, space and cyberspace internationally. The control of the seas, in particular, is the heart of the Stars and Stripes planetary hegemony. Since the days of “Pivot to Asia” theorized by Barack Obamawith the shift of American interests towards the East, the Taiwan dossier has therefore become primary for Washington, as we wish prevent China from projecting itself into the Indo-Pacific at all costs. China which is growing from an economic and military point of view.
A war in East Asia too, however, would not be sustainable for the USA. Who must first of all deal with a crisis in the military vocation of their young people, in the wake of that imperial disengagement embodied by Donald Trump and today, unlike eight years ago, also by a large part of the American government apparatus. And if you want to wage large-scale war against the other two major world powers, you need a lot of soldiers. Not only that: according to a simulation of Center for Strategic and International Studies in a direct confrontation with China over Taiwan, American victory would come at a very high price, which GDP and military resources would not be able to support without leading to systemic default. And we are not talking about the physiological debt and the economism with which the American empire keeps its satellites tied to itself, but about the federal structure itself. Beijing, on the other hand, has been building in the last two years 17 warships including cruisers and destroyers. A test of industrial strength right in the face of the USA, which would need six years to achieve the same result. The simultaneous support for Israel and Ukraine has put the American industrial and contractor system to the test. Think tanks then raised the alarm, along with the Pentagon and Senate: The United States would not be able to fight medium-high intensity asymmetric wars on two fronts (Ukraine and Taiwan).
According to some analysts, the current situation is the result of the US decision to cut military spending in the various theaters of the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991in the illusion that Pax Americana would guarantee everlasting stability. After September 11, 2001 and the tactical defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US faced daunting new threats, prompting the formulation of a new military doctrine. One of the crucial points is to increase the industrial capabilities of the Defense to support the allies, a clear euphemism for “satellites”. “It’s still an expensive choice, but it’s still less expensive than a huge expansion of the US military,” he points out Raphael Cohen, analyst at the Rand Corporation think tank. In the event of a world war no longer piecemeal, the US’ partners should come into play promptly: Japan, Australia and the Philippines in the Indo-Pacific; Born and European countries in Ukraine; NATO, Israel and local military bases in the Middle East. However, net of the weaknesses and internal divisions of the various blocs, as we Europeans can well testify. And with the nightmare ofnuclear apocalypse against the backdrop of any possible escalation.
What would happen in the event of a direct US war?
To understand the extent of the US difficulties in a potential “total war”, let’s consider the scenario of an open conflict with the supposedly smaller power between Russia and China, and therefore the former. In that case the US would be forced to deploy military equipment and personnel from around the world on the Eastern European front. That means calling in forces from other regions of the world, such as the Western Pacific. The annual assessment of US military power conducted by the Heritage Foundation, updated to 2022, estimates that the Stars and Stripes armed forces “are only moderately capable of guaranteeing their vital national security interests and would struggle greatly if called upon to deal with more than one competitor at the same time”. According to the Washington think tank, a joint force capable of tackling multiple fronts simultaneously should be composed of at least:
- an Army with 50 brigade combat teams, nearly 20 more than the current 31;
- a Navy with at least 400 ships, compared to the 297 ships currently available.
Other indicators also show how Both the Army and Navy are aging faster than they can modernize. Which gives rivals another opportunity to reach and perhaps surpass technological parity with the USA. China is already well underway in this field, also thanks to the agreements signed with authoritarian regimes in Africa and Latin America for the exploitation of natural resources, in exchange for infrastructure and goods, including military items. The same type of bond has also been established with Russia, which supplies Beijing with raw materials, food and fuel at favorable prices. The Chinese objective – and of “Global South” through which it attempts counter-globalization to undermine US hegemony – is to undermine the world system governed by the Americans. If you look at the world from this point of view, wars that seem to “erupt all at once” are perfectly intelligible: the conflict in Ukraine contributes to the closure of the Red Sea, the attacks of Houthis at the Red Sea crisisthe plans of Venezuela to conquer a large part of Guyana to steal oil from the Western bloc.
Because the USA wages war on multiple fronts
One of the strategic imperatives of the United States is to prevent the emergence of a country in every continent or region of the world. For this reason they intervened in the First and Second World Wars with an anti-German functionthat’s why they went in Vietnam and in Afghanistan and they opened up to China with an anti-Soviet functionthat’s why they support Ukraine anti-Russian function. The Pax Americana, guaranteed by American control of maritime routes, was undermined and the post-Cold War period ended with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The answer to the question “Why did these wars break out all at once?” it’s that Washington’s enemies have sensed the right moment to challenge US hegemony. In this sense, the final great rival for global dominance is China, which has promised to use force to take back the island of Taiwan. In whose American bases, as a result of the National Defense Authorization ActAmerican military advisors have begun to be permanently stationed to carry out a comprehensive program of advising and training local units, in line with the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act.
The US will to to freeze the war in Ukraine and sitting at the negotiating table with Russia responds to another strategic imperative for Washington: divide the enemy front. China and Russia are in fact empires that touch each other, cooperating out of convenience, allies who do not love each other. But they joined forces for an anti-American purpose. In this phase, a defeated and humiliated Russia would become easy prey for Beijing, which would then face the decisive challenge with the United States strong on the grain and hydrocarbons of Moscow. If you have two great enemies, you have to take the weaker one away from the stronger one. From here it stalemate in US Congress over $60 billion in aid for Ukraine and the decision to shift the burden of support for the invaded Parse onto the shoulders of the EU states, reviving the threat of European invasion by Moscow.
They also fit into the same picture the growing pressure on Israel to reduce military pressure on Gaza. The Jewish State was elected by Washington as the fulcrum for the control of the Middle East, in order to avoid the regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Iran (and Türkiye). The Abraham Accords they go exactly in this direction: the normalization of relations and mutual recognition between Israel and the Arab monarchies. To the wrath of Tehran, whose strategy is exactly the opposite: to prevent this process.
