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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 10/22/21

America's Bluff Policy

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Jean-Luc Basle
Message Jean-Luc Basle

Poker is Americans' favorite card game. It's a bluffing game. Hollywood made great use of it in its westerns. Bluff is used in all aspects of life, including wars and foreign relations. Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz was partially based on a bluff, so was D Day - the Allies having convinced Germany that the landing would take place in the north of France rather than in Normandy. Yet, bluff must be used wisely for if called by the other party, the outcome may be total defeat for the bluffer. If foreign relations were not so serious a subject especially in these unsettling times, one would be tempted to picture the United States, Russia and China as three poker players sitting at a table in a saloon. The United States caught between a rock and a hard place - the rock being World War III, the hard place the slow death of the Empire - is resorting to bluff hoping to win the pot. How did we arrive at such an odd and dreadful situation?

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the United States made three major mistakes. In a document dated February 1992, titled The Planning Defense Guideline, it let the world know that it was the forever hegemonic power. Hegemonic, it was. Forever, it wasn't. Ten years later, it made its second error. In December 2001, the United States allowed China to join the World Trade Organization on favorable terms the Chinese took full advantage of. As a result, the size of the Chinese economy grew exponentially from $1,334 billion in 2001 to $14,867 billion in 2020, i.e., 81% of the American economy. Over-reacting to a terrorist attack - albeit a horrendous one - the United States embarked on a 20-year global war on terrorism whose cost is estimated at $21,000 billion - an amount equal to the 2020 American gross domestic product (GDP) - with little if anything to show for after the humiliating retreat from Afghanistan (not to mention the millions of civilians who were displaced, maimed or killed). This was the third mistake.

Needless to say, the money would have been better spent strengthening the education system, repairing collapsing infrastructures and reducing an ever-rising inequality. Be this as it may, the United States is now saddled with an amount of debt which exceeds the level it reached at the end of World War II (129% of GDP in 2020 versus 113% in 1945). Part of that debt is funded by foreign investors - the two largest ones being China (!) and Japan. Consequently, the American economy is now in a precarious state. Should inflation rise any further than it has over the last few months, the Federal Reserve would have to raise interest rates which would precipitate the country, and possibly the world, into a deep recession. As if this was not enough, the presidents of the Federal Reserve of Dallas and Boston are suspected of illegal trade, and resigned recently.

The United States should take stock of the unviable situation it's in, and acknowledge its past errors. It should look for ways to improve international relations in order to concentrate on national issues. This is not the route the Biden administration is taking in spite of well-meaning domestic programs whose chances to reach their goals are small at best. On the international front, the administration follows a two-track policy aimed at fooling China and Russia while engaging in aggressive maneuvers with its allies and friends. The fooling first took the form of a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin followed by a meeting on June 16 in Geneva with no solid result. There was another telephone conversation with Xi Jinping this time which came to naught, the Chinese leader having refused to meet the American President. Nevertheless, in both instances, the leaders agreed that their associates should meet to stabilize their relations. So, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi in Zurich on October 6th. The meeting was unconclusive. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov for a three-day visit which nearly turned short after the first day when Ryabkov complained that Nuland was not interested in listening to Russian demands. The very choice of Victoria Nuland - the person Russians believe is behind the Maidan Revolution - was in itself an insult. The long and short of it is that from an American standpoint, the meetings were purely formal. The United States has an over-riding objective: remain the indisputable hegemon.

While the meetings took place, the United States consolidated its alliances in the Pacific as demonstrated with the AUKUS accord, and the Joint Statement of the Quad leaders (United States, Japan, Australia and India) to strengthen their mutual relations to build "a free, accessible and thriving Indo-Pacific region". Furthermore, on September 10th - the day after Joe Biden talked to Xi Jinping on the phone - representatives from Taiwan and American officials met in Washington to discuss a change in the name of the Taiwanese mission in the United States from "Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office" to "Taiwan Representative Office", bringing it closer to full diplomatic recognition. Kurt Campbell, the White House Asia adviser, is said to agree to the change. While not violating the 1972 Shanghai Communique whereby the United States adhered to the One China policy, such a change, if implemented, could only be viewed by Beijing as a step in that direction. In the meanwhile, responding to China's military maneuvers near Taiwan, Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said these "actions are provocative and potentially destabilizing", and warned against the "risk of miscalculation". The warning is strange considering that, were a conflict to break out over Taiwan, the US would fail "miserably", according to General John Hyten, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, whose opinion is based on wargaming exercise against China.

Russia and China are well aware of the United States' goals and are preparing for the worst. With the signing of the Joint Statement between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China on June 28, 2021, a point of no-return has been reached. The statement renews a twenty-year old quasi-alliance between the two countries. This is a most unfortunate development from a Western point of view for Russians who think of themselves as Europeans, are now allied with their Chinese neighbors. Blinded by their hegemonic vision, the Americans refused to allow them to join the Western world. Vladimir Putin took note of it in hisspeech at the February 2007 Munich Conference - speech which was shamefully misinterpreted by the United States to validate its policy vis-Ã -vis Russia. With this quasi-alliance, we are experiencing the creation of two spheres of influence, one led by the United States, the other by the Sino-Russian condominium - the very situation the United States and China committed not to create in the Shanghai Communique. Consequently, a war with either China or Russia may trigger a response from the other, and lead to World War III.

The United States empire is dying, as illustrated by the Afghanistan disaster, and the dire state of its economy, not to mention its political divisions and the sour state of part of its population who live below the poverty threshold. Opioids are destroying the American society and the United States has more convicts in its prisons than China in absolute and relative terms. Almost 71% of those aged 17 to 24 are ineligible to join the military because of "obesity, lack of high school diploma, or a criminal record," according to Pentagon data. Public trust in the American government which ran as high as 77% in 1974 is down to 24%, according to PEW Research - a third of what it was half a century ago. Rather than confronting its domestic problems head-on, the United States is bluffing at the poker table, hoping to take the pot. But that won't do anymore because it's got a weak hand, and its challengers know it. The United States is headed for disaster whatever form it takes: the Thucydides' trap* or an economic collapse.

*Graham Allison's "Destined for war: can America and China escape the Thucydides' trap"

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Former Vice President Citigroup New York (retired) Columbia University -- Business School Princeton University -- Woodrow Wilson School

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