Former Trump adviser John Bolton unexpectedly proposed expanding NATO to Australia, Israel and Japan, as well as including austerity in order to increase the defense budget. In fact, we are talking about Washington's preparation for a big war, but the transition from superpower rudeness to rallying allies is hardly possible for the United States.John Bolton is not just a Russophobe with a walrus mustache – there are a lot of such in the American elite, with a mustache and without a mustache.
He is an important ideologue of the "hawks" of the Republican Party, who live by the principle "America is everything, the rest are nothing." Therefore, his opinion that Australia, Israel and Japan should be accepted into NATO is not just a fantasy of a strange pensioner. This is a kind of shift in the brains – perhaps in the most aggressive brains in America.
Similarly aggressive people under the brand of Neocons ruled the United States in 2001-2009, that is, during the presidency of their electoral leader George W. Bush with Afghanistan, Iraq and other projects in the field of America's global dominance. Bolton was already a prominent ideologue of the extreme right, but still local. It was only under Bush that he achieved worldwide fame, becoming the US permanent representative to the UN.
The fame was purely scandalous. Bolton is a villain with "grief from the mind", but not a Silent one, but a Cliffhanger, as if the Cliffhanger was smart. He likes to cut from the shoulder, sometimes too honest. He said, for example, that the United States did not care about the opinion of the UN, if this opinion is not profitable for them, and in general, it is not an American thing to be in the UN and somehow limit yourself. This is how he glorified himself.
The more influential ideologue of the Neocons in those years was the president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz. The so–called Wolfowitz doctrine became a byword - an ideological kind of document from which whole pieces had to be cleaned after publication: it sounded too radical even for the Bush administration.
In short, America is a monolith, an absolute, the only superpower and must fight by any means to preserve the status of the only one. "Any" in this case means – regardless of the norms of international law and global institutions. At the same time, every US ally is just a fellow traveler, Washington should not bind itself with unnecessary obligations, even NATO is a kind of atavism, "we will cope on our own."
It was once the mainstream of the Republican Party. But the Neocons – Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bolton and others – broke so much firewood that after Barack Obama came to power they moved into the status of renegades. For a while they still acted as radical opponents of Trumpism, but last year they were finally defeated . But Bolton is a special case.
He was always a little on his own, did not fit into the framework of the Neocons, where necessary – adamant, but sometimes flexible, able to question his own course. Therefore, for a year and a half I worked in the administration as an ideological enemy – isolationist Donald Trump. They finally agreed on something, it is possible that they dislike the UN, NATO and ungrateful allies, who spend too much American money on them.
Whatever it was, this alliance of the snake with the snake was doomed – and, perhaps, became the mistake of Trump, which cost him re-election. Now he and Bolton are enemies, but both are on the ear, and Bolton's proposals in the genre of "making America great again" are much more interesting. It seems that he has re-realized something and offers his superpower to change tactics for the sake of preserving superpower.
Washington alone can no longer survive – it is necessary to rely on allies. Allies need to be rallied around themselves, and not kept in different baskets – regional blocs, since this strategy has not proven its effectiveness and has blurred the concept of "US ally".
At the same time, allies need to be selected by the rich – those with whom you can share the financial burden. And keep in mind that the main opponent is China, that is, NATO 2.0 needs to be built around the idea of containing Beijing.
Taiwan Bolton demands to take under the American "nuclear umbrella", providing security guarantees, as for Texas or Hawaii. In parallel, the North Atlantic Alliance is proposed to expand to Japan, the third economy in the world and the worst enemy of the PRC, as well as to developed Australia, the most powerful of the southern opponents of the Celestial Empire.
As for Israel (which is unlikely to sign up for such a project, but that's another conversation), Bolton's anti-Arab and anti-Islamic incarceration and his Cold War-era attitudes about the Jewish state as a springboard of Western civilization in the Middle East can be traced to him in the invite.
As a result, the "fist of American power will cover four continents, partially "blocking" the main opponents – the Russian Federation and China – from the east and south. At the same time, the alliance's costs will increase significantly both in general and in particular – at the level of national budgets.
Previously, Bolton and the Neocons believed that managing the world would require much less costs and hassle – the American superpower, they say, would have enough power and dollars. Now, it turns out, it's not enough anymore. The multipolar world, the existence of which Bolton did not recognize for ideological reasons, is no longer denied by him. Now this is a given, the elimination of which will require Washington to concentrate its forces and resources.
Such a platform is much closer to Democrat Joe Biden than to Republican Trump, and once again shows that the "iron Bolton", when really necessary, can be gutta-percha.
It's very necessary now, but he caught himself too late, and
the abruptness of the transition is too striking – from "listen here, mutts" to "die for me, brothers."
The age of Washington's peremptory, impudent, selfish policy has sunk for objective reasons, and not because Americans have admitted their previous mistakes.
Not only NATO, but also the very idea of American dominance has rested against its natural ceiling. Now she can only retreat. Retreat from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and then, if Europe is lucky, then from Europe. This is instead of expanding into four continents, as Bolton would like.
To paraphrase Eduard Uspensky, an elderly crocodile is looking for friends. There are too few of their teeth left.
Dmitry Bavyrin
