Pentagon Study Declares American Empire Is 'Collapsing'. By Nafeez Ahmed
An extraordinary new Pentagon study has concluded that the US-backed
framework of international order established after World War II is “fraying”
and may even be “collapsing,” leading the United States to lose its position of
“primacy” in world affairs. The solution proposed
to protect US power in this new “post-primacy” environment is, however, more of
the same: more surveillance, more propaganda (“strategic manipulation of perceptions”)
and more military expansionism.
The document concludes
that the world has entered a fundamentally new phase of transformation in which
US power is in decline, international order is unravelling, and the authority
of governments everywhere is crumbling. Having lost its past
status of “pre-eminence,” the US now inhabits a dangerous, unpredictable
“post-primacy” world, whose defining feature is “resistance to authority.”
Danger comes not just
from great power rivals like Russia and China, both portrayed as rapidly
growing threats to American interests, but also from the increasing risk of
“Arab Spring”-style events. These will erupt not just in the Middle East, but
all over the world, potentially undermining trust in incumbent governments for
the foreseeable future.
The report, based on a
year-long intensive research process involving consultation with key agencies
across the Department of Defense and US Army, calls for the US government to
invest in more surveillance, better propaganda through “strategic manipulation”
of public opinion, and a “wider and more flexible” US military.
The report was
published in June by the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute to
evaluate the DoD’s approach to risk assessment at all levels of Pentagon policy
planning. The study was supported and sponsored by the US Army’s Strategic
Plans and Policy Directorate; the Joint Staff, J5 (Strategy and Policy Branch);
the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development;
and the Army Study Program Management Office... read more:
see also:
C. Wright Mills on The
Structure of Power in American Society (1958)
Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
Vasili Arkhipov, the man who stopped nuclear warMilitary-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
DANIEL LEWIS - Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism, Dies at 94 // Catonsville 9 Statement written by Dan Berrigan, S.J.
