The major difference from his predecessor is that the new US president promises a greater reliance on multilateral diplomacy and international cooperative agreements to achieve US imperial goals. Biden pledged to remain in the World Health Organization<\/a> and to return to the Paris Climate Agreement, although compliance with the latter is voluntary<\/a> and Biden defends fracking<\/a>. After Trump withdrew the US from the UN Human Rights Council<\/a> three years ago, the US will reengage as an observer. And Trump\u2019s \u201cMuslim ban<\/a>\u201d was reversed in Biden\u2019s first day in office.<\/p>\n Regardless of the changing of the guard in Washington, the imperial goal of the \u201cfull spectrum dominance<\/a>\u201d endures from one administration to the next. The global network of 800-1000 foreign military bases will not be shuttered.<\/p>\n The fact that the US can with impunity punish a third of humanity<\/a> (39 nations) with illegal sanctions \u2013 what the UN calls \u00a0unilateral coercive measures<\/a> \u00a0\u2013 is a measure of its hegemonic standing. These sanctions<\/a> are a form of \u201chybrid warfare,\u201d which can be just as deadly as outright war. Although Biden is reviewing<\/a> the sanctions policy, considering the COVID-19 pandemic, he is expected to \u201ckeep using [the] US sanctions weapon but with sharper aim,\u201d as reported<\/a> by Reuters.<\/p>\n The new Secretary of State Antony Blinken<\/a> asserted that his policies would follow his predecessor, but will \u201cmore effectively target<\/a>\u201d official enemies such as Venezuela<\/a> and will double down on Russia<\/a>. Following Trump, Biden is appealing to the UK High Court to extradite Julian Assange<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re at an inflection point\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n Biden warned<\/a>, in his foreign policy priorities speech, about \u201ccompetition among countries that threaten to divide the world\u201d caused by \u201cshifting global dynamics.\u201d The threat to \u201cdivide the world\u201d that concerns the US president is precisely any deviation from US domination. Biden was referring to the emergence of potential rival powers. His warning affirms and extends Trump\u2019s 2017 National Security Strategy<\/a> doctrine of \u201cgreat-power competition\u201d and swings away from Obama\u2019s earlier and subsequently abandoned conception of \u201cinternational interdependence.\u201d<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s \u201cshifting global dynamics\u201d are what Obama\u2019s Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel referred to as \u201cchallenging the world order that American leadership<\/a> helped build after World War II.\u201d In other words, the world\u2019s sole superpower is averse to an emerging multipolar world.<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s speech concluded, \u201cWe\u2019re at an inflection point\u201d caused by \u201cnew crises.\u201d While not identified by Biden, this is implicit recognition of the impending crisis of legitimacy of the neoliberal world order. The US is the main beneficiary, proponent, and enforcer of a global political economy that increasingly is seen as failing to meet people\u2019s needs. Class disparities<\/a> during an economic recession<\/a> are ever more evident in the US and internationally. Here in the US, billionaires<\/a> have added $4 trillion to their net worth since the onset of the pandemic.<\/p>\n Return to Atlanticism and NATO expansion<\/strong><\/p>\n While still president, Trump spoke<\/a> against the US as the world\u2019s gendarme: \u201cThe plan is to get out of endless wars to bring our soldiers back home, not be policing agents all over the world.\u201d For a variety of reasons, Trump\u2019s iconoclastic words never found their way into policy. And, certainly, Biden\u2019s speech writers will never give him similar words to read.<\/p>\n Rather, Biden said<\/a> in his foreign policy speech that the US is \u201cfully committed to our NATO Alliance\u201d and \u201cwelcome[s] Europe\u2019s growing investment in the military capabilities.\u201d The US mission in Iraq will be expanded and more US troops will be sent to Germany.<\/p>\n Africa and the Middle East <\/strong><\/p>\n The new administration will expand US military presence in Africa through its Africa Command (AFRICOM<\/a>), which in 2019 deployed Special Forces in 22 countries and was in active combat in at least thirteen of them. The largest ever US military exercise in Africa, African Lions 21<\/a>, is scheduled for this June with \u201cpartner nations.\u201d<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s State Department approved a $200 million arms sale to Egypt<\/a>, a country headed by the man Trump called his \u201cfavorite dictator.\u201d The US is and continues to be the world\u2019s largest purveyor of military equipment<\/a>, eclipsing the combined sales of the next four highest war profiteers.<\/p>\n Oil and gas are strategic resources, and their international flows are key factors for imperial control. Absent oil and gas sales, 60% of its GDP, Russia<\/a> would be a minor economy.<\/p>\n Now that the US is a net oil exporter<\/a>, the oil-rich Gulf monarchies are both allies and potential competitors.<\/p>\n Trump extended the US\u2019s \u201cspecial relationship\u201d in the Middle East with Israel and Saudi Arabia; Biden continues this trajectory. Trump\u2019s provocative move of the US embassy to Jerusalem will not be reversed by Biden, nor will Palestinian rights<\/a> be recognized.<\/p>\n Ignoring nuclear-armed Israel, the Biden team continues the US\u2019s obsession with Iran\u2019s nuclear program. Biden has committed to renegotiate \u201ca better deal\u201d regarding Iran<\/a> after Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, his the deal includes Trump\u2019s demand to include Iran\u2019s whole regional policy.<\/p>\n The new US administration will be augmenting troops in Syria and expanding and building new military bases<\/a> there. Damascus is in a weakened state with the pandemic, economic blockade, and continued military hostilities by the US and its \u201cpartners.\u201d<\/p>\n Biden announced<\/a> that the US will no longer support \u201coffensive operations\u201d in the Saudi-led war on Yemen<\/a>, which has precipitated a human rights catastrophe<\/a>. It remains to be seen what continuing \u201cdefensive\u201d lethal aid to the Saudis<\/a> entails. The Saudis have the world\u2019s fifth largest military, costing an astronomical 8% of their GDP. Some US military sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been temporarily suspended. In response, the CEO of military merchant Raytheon<\/a> commented: \u201cPeace is not going to break out in the Middle East anytime soon.\u201d He should know, as Biden\u2019s defense secretary formerly sat on his company\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n \u201cAmerica\u2019s backyard\u201d \u2013 21st<\/sup> century Monroe Doctrine<\/strong><\/p>\n Treatment of Latin America and the Caribbean as the US\u2019s proprietary backyard, under the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, is being challenged by a rising \u201cpink tide\u201d:\u00a0 recent leftist electoral wins in Mexico, Argentina, and Bolivia and a possibility in Ecuador in April; popular uprisings in Argentina, Haiti, and elsewhere; and continued resistance by Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.<\/p>\n Biden, the day he entered office, had the power of executive order to restore Obama\u2019s openings to Cuba that had been reversed by Trump. Now, over a month in office, Biden has not ended limits on remittances, restrictions on travel, or other illegal sanctions<\/a> on Cuba. Biden continues the illegal policy of regime change for Cuba of the previous twelve US presidents: covert and overt destabilization, blockade, and occupation of Guant\u00e1namo<\/a>. Obama\u2019s openings to Cuba were not a deviation from previous policy but an attempt to achieve regime change by different<\/a> means.<\/p>\n Venezuela featured prominently in the presidential campaign speeches of Trump and Biden, with both promoting regime change<\/a>. US-anointed counterfeit president of Venezuela, Juan Guaid\u00f3<\/a> has lost his credentials with the European Union. But the farce \u2013 initiated in 2019 by Trump \u2013 is nonetheless being continued by Biden, who backed down on his campaign pledge to possibly negotiate directly with the democratically elected president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n Biden, once in office, has deported thousands of emigres back to Haiti<\/a> and other countries. This represents \u201ca disappointing step backward from the Biden administration\u2019s earlier commitments to fully break from the harmful deportation policies<\/a> of both the Trump and Obama presidencies,\u201d\u00a0 according to the American Civil Liberties Union.<\/p>\n Pivot to Asia<\/strong><\/p>\n US foreign policy reflects the personal qualities of the person occupying the Oval Office, party affiliation, and the constellation of state<\/a> and corporate powers behind the administration. But eclipsing these factors are larger geopolitical developments, especially now with the emergence of China as the world\u2019s workshop<\/a>.<\/p>\n China is an upcoming rival but falls short as a peer of the US in terms of economic power. China\u2019s remarkable economic growth has been predicated by its integration in and indeed dependence on the international capitalist market, which is dominated by the US<\/a>. Although China is the world\u2019s leading exporter<\/a>, only a miniscule 4% of the international exchange of currencies are denominated<\/a> in the Chinese yuan compared to 88% in US dollars. Tellingly, close to half the trade between China and Russia<\/a>, two countries sanctioned by the US, is denominated in US dollars.<\/p>\n Following Obama\u2019s \u201cpivot to Asia\u201d in 2012, Biden\u2019s policy portends a continuation of Trump\u2019s hostility toward China only with further intensification<\/a>. The US military buildup to confine China includes land, air, sea, and even space forces with the South China Sea as a hotspot of contention.<\/p>\n Trump negotiated a peace agreement between the Taliban and the US-backed government in Afghanistan, now in its twentieth year of war. The Biden administration has indicated that it will not honor the agreement, which requires a US troop drawdown instead of Biden\u2019s announced buildup.<\/p>\n The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is entering its 71st<\/sup> year of official war with the US with no end in sight. When Trump met with DRPK President Kim Jong-un in 2019, the Democrats screamed \u201ctreason<\/a>.\u201d To be sure, Biden will not make the patriotic mistake of trying to reduce tension between the two nuclear powers.<\/p>\n Nuclear policy \u2013 100 seconds before midnight<\/strong><\/p>\n The US is ringing Russia and China with \u201cmissile defense systems<\/a>,\u201d which had been illegal until George W. Bush abrogated the US-Russia ABM Treaty in 2002. A \u201cmissile defense system\u201d is designed to shield against a retaliatory response after a first-strike nuclear attack. Congress recently authorized a new generation of US intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).<\/p>\n China\u2019s official policy is \u201cnot to be the first<\/a> to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances.\u201d Russian policy<\/a> is to use nuclear weapons only \u201cwhen the very existence of the state is threatened.\u201d On contrast, the US reserves the right to \u201cfirst use<\/a>\u201d nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n A trillion-dollar plus nuclear weapon modernization, started by Obama and continued by Trump, lurches on under Biden with the entire US nuclear arsenal scheduled to be upgraded. The consequences are far greater risks of launching an accidental nuclear war and an accelerated arms race with Russia and China. Head of the US Strategic Air Command, Admiral Charles A. Richard, warned<\/a> just this month that in a conflict with Russia or China \u201cnuclear employment is a very real possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n Given such an international climate, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists<\/em> set the 2021 doomsday clock<\/a> to 100 seconds before midnight. Although the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons<\/a> became international law on January 21, the US has not ratified it. On the brighter side, Biden extended the New START nuclear arms treaty for four years.<\/p>\n Another world is possible, another US is necessary<\/strong><\/p>\n The story ends just 100 seconds before disaster, but that is only half the story. The other half is the resistance to US imperialism. \u201cAmerican leadership\u201d of the world, touted by both Republicans and Democrats, is not democratic. No one elected the US to be the world\u2019s nanny. International polls show the US is rated among the most feared<\/a>, hated<\/a>, and dangerous<\/a> countries in the world and the greatest threat<\/a> to world peace.<\/p>\n The Vox Populi<\/em> project<\/a> reports majorities or pluralities of the US people support reducing<\/a> the military budget, achieving peace by avoiding foreign intervention, negotiating directly with adversaries to avoid military confrontation, decreasing US troops overseas, and constraining the president\u2019s ability to attack a foreign adversary.<\/p>\n ________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n 26 Feb 2021 – The fact that the US can with impunity punish a third of humanity (39 nations) with illegal sanctions \u2013 what the UN calls unilateral coercive measures \u2013 is a measure of its hegemonic standing. These sanctions are a form of \u201chybrid warfare,\u201d which can be just as deadly as outright war. Although Biden is reviewing the sanctions policy, considering the COVID-19 pandemic, he is expected to \u201ckeep using [the] US sanctions weapon but with sharper aim,\u201d as reported by Reuters. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":127604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[867,2197,1126,1050,923,70],"class_list":["post-180112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-anglo-america","tag-biden","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-sanctions","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Biden justifies<\/a> the NATO military encirclement of Russia, with intimations that Ukraine and Georgia<\/a> may eventually join, by \u201cthe threat from Russia.\u201d However, Russian reactions to staging hostile war games and nuclear capable facilities on its border are plausibly defensive. Meanwhile the US-led military alliance has long since broken loose from its Atlantic-centric borders with NATO Partners Across the Globe<\/a> extending to Afghanistan, Australia, Colombia, Iraq, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand, and Pakistan.<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Roger-Harris-e1549438478629.jpg\")
<\/a><\/em>Roger D. Harris<\/em> is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network, <\/a>associate editor at <\/em>Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), and the immediate past president of the Task Force on the Americas<\/a>, a 33-year-old human rights organization in solidarity with the social justice movements of Latin America and the Caribbean. He is active with the Campaign to End US-Canadian Sanctions against Venezuela<\/a> and is on the state central committee of the <\/em>Peace and Freedom Party<\/em><\/a>, the only ballot-qualified socialist party in California. He recently visited Syria for an international conference on the impacts of economic sanctions by the US and its allies on over 30 countries in the world. <\/em>roger.harris@comcast.net<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"