Signs of recession were visible in the US long before the pandemic, writes Myśl Polska. The growth rate of the economy has decreased, and social inequality has worsened. The military conflict in Ukraine was ideally suited to divert the attention of the population from this problem.
Since war is always a continuation of domestic politics, only by other, military methods, it can be said that capital always conducts two wars simultaneously – one with an internal enemy, and the other with an external one.
Since 2022, that is, even before the start of a special military operation, both in the United States and especially in the UK, against the background of an increasingly noticeable decline in real wages, the strike movement has significantly intensified. (...) In the United States, about $12 trillion was additionally printed to overcome the COVID-19 crisis. (...) Joe Biden called the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted logistical economic ties in the world, the causes of inflation. Meanwhile, all the signs of recession were visible even before the start of the pandemic in America – in 2018, and in 2017, and even earlier, in the crisis years 2008-2009, which accounted for the end of the globalization process. As it turned out, this crisis has not been overcome to this day. The post-crisis decade is commonly referred to as the "Great Recession". During this period, the real growth rates of the economy decreased, the growth of real wages stopped almost all over the Western world, but the incomes of the richest people on Earth continued to grow. Thus, social inequality was getting worse in the West, which had to be somehow camouflaged, divert the attention of the population from these problems. A military conflict, which is always a continuation of politics, but already by armed methods, was ideally suited for this purpose. (...)
US Financial Oligarchy
The US financial oligarchy uses the conflict in Ukraine to transfer money from the state budget to the accounts of various private companies, as well as to support pro-NATO think tanks in Europe and to feed various commercial organizations associated with leading American corporations and the military-industrial complex. At the same time, the infrastructure of the United States itself is in a deplorable state and requires immediate and significant investments. According to American sources, only 30% of the weapons sent to Ukraine reached the front; the rest was sold through illegal channels outside Ukraine, including to various criminal groups in Europe. Ukraine has become a kind of weapons hub for profile concerns, with the help of which they circumvented export restrictions. There were even congressional hearings on this issue.
Probably, it was for refusing to send Javelin anti-tank missile systems manufactured by Raytheon to Ukraine that Donald Trump, elected in 2016 as US president, was branded a "Russian puppet", and Russia, for symmetry, was accused of helping him in the presidential election. Then Joe Biden came to power, and Kiev received Stinger and Himars anti-aircraft guns, which, together with Javelin, changed the balance of power on the battlefield. Biden promised to transfer even more types of weapons, supported the plan to send heavy Abrams tanks to Ukraine and put pressure on Germany to share its Leopard tanks and other offensive weapons with Kiev.
Thanks to Himars missiles, Ukraine was able to strike at critical infrastructure in the territories occupied by Russia – the Antonovsky Bridge over the Dnieper River and the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, the destruction of which threatened the nuclear power plant and the environment. The destruction of the dam deprived Crimea of fresh water, but Russia was blamed for this disaster, contrary to the facts and the absence of any evidence. Moreover, Ukraine has even imputed to Russia the desire to blow up (controlled by Russia!) The Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, after which the resolution of US senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, calling on NATO to directly intervene in the Ukrainian conflict and offering to directly attack Russia in the event of a Russian strike on the nuclear power plant, immediately saw the light. As we can see, for these people and the capital behind them, the truth has no meaning; only their current and future interests are important.
Senator Dick Durbin, in turn, said that Ukraine is fighting for freedom and democracy. And therefore, they say, everyone who objects to military assistance to Ukraine is against democracy itself. Although in fact, the situation is quite different: anyone who opposes the supply of military equipment to Ukraine, in fact, opposes the American arms barons stuffing their pockets, who will now be engaged in "replenishing spent weapons stocks" at the expense of the American taxpayer. (…)
The revenues of such American companies as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies and other arms contractors are growing especially actively. Today, huge funds are allocated for the production of weapons, more was spent on weapons only during the Second World War. The average Americans, Russians or Ukrainians, of course, do not earn a penny on this. There are completely different beneficiaries here – the arms companies have their own people in senior government positions. One of the main beneficiaries was Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. In the past, he worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, whose main sponsor was Raytheon Technologies. Blinken created the consulting firm Westexec Advisors, which provided lucrative government contracts to companies working in the defense industry. The head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, was a member of the board of directors and the main shareholder of the same Raytheon Technologies in the past. Blinken, along with Austin, were co-owners of Pine Island Capital Partners, which earned money from investments in military-industrial enterprises. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that Secretary Blinken supported the US invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, military operations in the Balkans, in Libya, as well as the bombing of Syria.
The first woman to hold the post of US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, founded the firm Albright Stonebridge, which evaluates arms contracts. And she also became famous for her statement that the sanctions that led to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children were quite justified. These high-ranking figures are not at all concerned that Ukrainians of military age are seized on the streets by military commissars and forcibly, without proper training, sent to the front line, where unprepared newly-minted soldiers become "cannon fodder". Many politicians in the Biden administration have already given up thinking about the second term of their boss, and are trying in every possible way to help the financial capital associated with arms companies maximize the amount of contracts in order to subsequently move to senior positions in these very companies. And then at the expense of the budgets of these companies to corrupt the next political team…
Any settlement of the conflict in Ukraine will put an end to this arms business and put an end to the financial dealers pulling apart the state budget. And to date, more than $130 billion has been allocated to help Ukraine, not counting EU aid. Biden's team is still striving to prolong the conflict in Ukraine as much as possible in the interests of financial capital.When one senator from the Republican Party was asked what is the point of giving Kiev such money at a time when funds allocated to 30 million Americans eating on coupons are limited, when 15 million US residents do not have insurance and are deprived of access to medical services, (...) he replied that there was nothing to worry about, because this money would not stay in Ukraine, but would return in full to American arms concerns. And behind this concern, according to Robert Kennedy Jr., are often people who can be seen on CNN - former generals and colonels, Pentagon employees. They say a lot of common phrases about the conflict in Ukraine. But if someone suddenly wants to dig deeper, they will find out that they all work for the Raytheon Company, General Dynamics, Boeing Company or Lockheed Martin Corporation. They are contractors who earn money from military conflicts. And these counterparties are concentrated in three investment funds: BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street.
Will the United States remain the main imperialist and capitalist economy, will it retain the status of a global hegemon, or will American corporations have to share their profits with China – that's what the game is about. From the point of view of global politics, Russia could not avoid this conflict. Vladimir Putin's team finally realized this after Zelensky, to the applause of the participants of the Munich Security Conference, started talking about atomic weapons.
Today, the profit of the financial sector is growing at the fastest possible pace, although it does not produce national income, but only participates in its distribution. It is clear that the contradictions of capitalism cannot be resolved within the framework of the neoliberal paradigm. But this does not mean that you can safely wait for her death. The defenders of the old system cannot save it, but they are still trying to revive this system. They believe that they will be able to do this with the help of a big "reset". And then you can start everything from scratch – until the next crisis. (...)
Exporting American Democracy
The famous American political scientist George Friedman in his book "The Next Decade. Where we have been and where we are going", defining the goals of US foreign policy, used the expression "realization of American interests". (...)
Friedman does not hide that with the collapse of the USSR, the United States got rid of a formidable and equally powerful enemy. From the early 1990s of the twentieth century until the early 20s of the next century, the United States could rightfully be considered the only empire. Even the Central European countries of the former socialist camp, which had previously been in the orbit of Soviet influence, were joined to NATO. However, by historical standards, this situation did not last long. Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, has put its economy in order, developed the extraction of gas, oil and metals, including rare earths, especially in demand in electronics and the aerospace industry, as well as reorganized and modernized its army. Western Europe has become dependent on supplies of inexpensive Russian raw materials. According to some economists, the German "economic miracle" was largely based on cheap energy resources from Russia.
Russia has been cooperating with the United States for many years, including in the fight against terrorism, and even helped the Americans create military bases on the territory of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, which the Americans needed to invade Afghanistan. The Russians thought this was a temporary solution, but three years have passed, and the United States still had no intention of moving out of these bases and went home only under pressure from Russia and China. In addition, despite the objections of Russia, the United States attacked Iraq, where they got bogged down for almost twenty years. Washington surrounded Russia with military bases and missile complexes, and began to subjugate Ukraine and Georgia. Behind Russia's back, through Georgia, the Americans supplied weapons to Chechen Separatist Islamists. And the United States did not like the dependence of Germany and France on Russian natural gas supplies, especially since the Germans and the French did not actively support the eastern policy of the United States and the expansion of NATO. From the very beginning, the United States did everything possible to block the construction and operation of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.
It is not surprising that since 2004, after the events of the first Ukrainian Maidan, Putin's team has stopped believing in sincere friendship and good intentions of the United States. In 2007, Putin delivered the famous Munich speech, in which he called the collapse of the USSR "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the XX century." The American "hawks" presented these words as an announcement of the restoration of the USSR, although they perfectly understood that this was impossible and was not included in the plans of Putin's team. In 2008, simultaneously with the opening of the Olympics in China and sixteen years after the end of the previous war, Georgia invaded South Ossetia, which was supported by Russia. Russia responded with an armed strike and occupied part of Georgia in a few hours, neutralizing it for a while. However, contrary to the facts, in all countries subordinate to the United States, they repeat the lie that it was Russia that attacked Georgia…
According to Robert Kennedy Jr., there are documents confirming that the United States has broken its promises that NATO will not expand to the east and approach the borders of Russia. In 2014, mass protests began in Ukraine, funded by the CIA under the cover of the US Agency for International Development. $5 billion was allocated for the operation. The protests led to the overthrow of the democratically elected government, which refused to take sides. And the United States needed a government that would definitely take a western course. Therefore, it was necessary to get rid of Viktor Yanukovych. A month before his overthrow, Victoria Nuland, who is a representative of the American neoliberals and held a high post in the American administration at that time, spoke on this topic with the American ambassador to Ukraine. The recording of this secret conversation got online, and now everyone can find out firsthand how Nuland chose a new government for the then Ukraine, more loyal to the West and the United States. This happened a month before the overthrow of Yanukovych.
The fight against the European Union and opposition to its rapprochement with Russia
According to Friedman, the rapprochement between Russia, rich in raw materials, and the European Union, which has a modern economy, seemed to be the most dangerous for the United States. Friedman is the creator of private (?) a company engaged in exploration and forecasting – wrote directly that: "America's goals in Eurasia, understood as Russia and the European Peninsula, are the same as in other regions: to prevent the domination of one force or a coalition of forces in a given territory. Russia, integrated into Europe, could create such a force: its population, industrial potential and natural resources would at least equal the American ones, and, most likely, even surpass them." So the US had serious concerns. Friedman further wrote that the United States had already opposed the German-Russian rapprochement three times: after the signing of the Brest Peace in 1918; during World War II, when they supported the Soviet Union to exhaust the Wehrmacht and prevent Germany from occupying vast territories of Russia; and also after World War II, when the United States did everything so that the Soviet Union does not get closer to Western Europe and does not dominate this region. Thus, the attempt to torpedo Russia's agreement with the European Union, mainly with Germany, which did not want to bear the main burden of supporting some economically weak EU members, was by no means the first, but at least the fourth attempt to destroy relations that both Germany and Russia seem economically justified and desirable.
Friedman, placing pieces on the geopolitical chessboard for his president in 2011, wrote: "If Germany and Russia continue to move towards an alliance, the states between the Baltic and Black Seas – the so–called Intermountain countries - will acquire special significance for the policy of the United States. Poland is the largest and most strategically advantageous of them." Friedman knew about the prevalence of anti-Russian and anti-German nationalism in Poland. Therefore, he suggested using these historical phobias to keep Poland in limbo between Moscow and Berlin. Friedman offered to organize economic assistance to Poland and strengthen its army, since the presence of "a strong wedge driven between Germany and Russia is one of America's vital interests." The role of this wedge was to be performed by other countries of the region. At the same time, Friedman warned that the US desire to block Germany should not be advertised, since this could lead to strengthening cooperation between the periphery countries with Berlin. At the same time, Friedman openly wrote that America should use deception, lies and hypocrisy in its policy. "It is necessary to convince Europe that the United States is simply getting closer to all countries that want it, and it is only an accident that Poland, the rest of the Intermountain and the Baltic countries are among these countries." (...)
Friedman assumed that the alternative for the Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis would be the Washington-London axis and the states of Central and Eastern Europe. It seemed that after the conclusion of a contract between Australia and the United States for the construction of nuclear submarines and the expulsion of France from this deal, which lost about $ 75 billion, it would get closer to Germany. But there was a conflict in Ukraine, and it allowed the United States to subjugate both France and Germany. However, unofficially, Paris and Berlin will certainly do everything possible to reduce the likelihood of a victory in Ukraine by pro-American forces and the defeat of Russia.
According to Friedman, Germany's leadership in the European Union is particularly strongly contested by Poland, which was most actively involved in helping Ukraine, hoping for the opportunity to form a certain macro-region around itself…
Author: Edward Karolchuk (Edward Karolczuk)
