{"id":202627,"date":"2022-01-10T12:00:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T12:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=202627"},"modified":"2022-01-06T09:06:30","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T09:06:30","slug":"lowering-usas-delusion-throne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/01\/lowering-usas-delusion-throne\/","title":{"rendered":"Lowering USA&#8217;s Delusion Throne"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_202671\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/The-Triumph-of-Pompey.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-202671\" class=\"wp-image-202671\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/The-Triumph-of-Pompey.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/The-Triumph-of-Pompey.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/The-Triumph-of-Pompey-300x160.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/The-Triumph-of-Pompey-768x410.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-202671\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Triumph of Pompey. (Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, 1765, Metropolitan Museum of Art)<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>I.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When Pompey the Great made his triumphant return to Rome in 61 BCE from his stunning conquests in the East, a spectacular ceremony was planned. Pageantry on a grandiose scale was designed both to satisfy his outsized ego and to display superior status in his rivalry with Julius Caesar. The centerpiece was to be a towering throne where a regally costumed Pompey would pass through a Victory arch installed for the occasion. A small problem arose, though, when a rehearsal showed that the throne was 4 feet taller than the height of the arch.<\/p>\n<p>That is a neat metaphor for the uneasy position in which Uncle Sam finds himself these days. We proudly pronounce our enduring greatness from every lectern and altar in the land, pledge to hold our standing as global Number One forever and ever; yet, we constantly bump our head against an unaccommodating reality. Instead of downsizing the monumental juggernaut or applying ourselves to a delicate raising of the arch, we make repeated attempts to fit through in a vain effort to bend the world to our mythology. Evocation of the Concussion Protocol is in order \u2013 but nobody wants to admit that sobering truth.<\/p>\n<p>Our engagements in the world over the past 20 years reveal a grim record of failed ventures. Most have been caused by unrealistic goals, blinkered views of the field of action, overweening pride, an ignorance of foreign places and their history, and an unseemly readiness to take complacent comfort in fantasy worlds that exist only in our own imagination. In short, US foreign policy has been misguided \u2013 badly and consistently misguided.<\/p>\n<p>The inevitable frustrations and failures owe equally to sheer incompetence. An endless string of errors \u2013 diplomatic\/military\/political \u2013 is as difficult for the nation to reconcile with its \u2018can-do\u2019 self-image as is the admission of the glaring discrepancy between the belief in the country\u2019s Providential mission and its increasingly evident ordinariness. Vince Lombardi, the legendary football coach, often is quoted as declaring:\u00a0<em>\u201cVictory is not the most important thing; it\u2019s the only thing.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0That has been an implicit North American motto from the beginning. However, in the global arena over the past generation, we have been setting records for failure and futility.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1 &#8211;<\/strong> The era began with the success of evicting al-Qaeda from <em>Afghanistan<\/em>and the toppling of their Taliban hosts. It\u2019s been downhill ever since at an accelerating pace \u2013 culminating at the crack-up at the Kabul airport where the obtuseness and criminal irresponsibility of the Pentagon brass (abetted by the CIA\u2019s habitual faulty Intelligence) produced a human and political disaster. The Taliban are back in power thanks to our misbegotten actions in seeking the liquidation of Taliban adherents who had fled their organization and retired to their homes in 2002, and our unbounded reliance on feuding clans of corrupt warlords.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Qaeda evolved from a fanatical jihadist cadre numbering in the double figures to an international conglomerate with franchises in a dozen countries and a free-lance fan club operating in Western capitals. The alleged training camps and indoctrination centers had no more tangible existence than did Saddam\u2019s WMD.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2 &#8211;<\/strong> The Afghan fiasco pales compared to the multi-dimensional tragedy created by the <em>Iraq invasion\/occupation<\/em>. The scorecard:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hundreds of thousands dead, wounded, orphaned.<\/li>\n<li>The fostering of sectarian blood-letting that institutionalizes the country\u2019s political fragmentation<\/li>\n<li>The massive destruction of economic infrastructure.<\/li>\n<li>The welding of ties between Shi\u2019te majority government in Iraq with Iran\u2019s clerical regime (our avowed enemy \u2013 justified or not)<\/li>\n<li>Torture and abuse in dedicated camps that permanently blemished our cultivated image as the champion of human rights<\/li>\n<li>The spawning of the Islamic state \u2013 conceived, organized and recruiting in US prison camps \u2013 McChrystal\u2019s Camp Bucca foremost<\/li>\n<li>The resulting mayhem in Iraq and Syria with deleterious effects across the region<\/li>\n<li>One effect: the flood of refugees into Europe that fueled the rise of far-Right and neo-Fascist movements across Europe \u2013 disrupting political life in friendly counties and undermining the EU<\/li>\n<li>In\u00a0Syria, prioritizing the overthrow of Assad\u2019s regime over the fight against the al-Qaeda affiliates who led the insurrection (a failure that is probably a success for Syria, for us and for the region)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>3 &#8211;<\/strong> Redoubling our <em>unqualified support for\u00a0<\/em><em>Saudi Arabia<\/em>\u00a0under the leadership of the cocaine addicted megalomaniac Mohammed bib-Salman. Thereby, allying ourselves with the Sunni side in the historic contest between them and their Shi\u2019a rivals. That led to the disgraceful policy (continuing to this day) of supporting and participating in the unwarranted assault on Yemen\u2019s Houthis which has devastated the country and destroyed lives in what amount to massive \u2018war crimes.\u2019 Yet, an official State Department just last month declared\u00a0<em>Saudi Arabia \u201ca force for progress<\/em>\u201d in the Middle East.\u00a0The resulting shredding of what remains of the USA pretense of being the custodian of human rights globally has made risible such events as Biden\u2019s League of Democracies summit.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4 &#8211;\u00a0<\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0 Similar suffering and destruction inflicted on\u00a0<em>Somalia\u00a0<\/em>by North American meddling and military intervention with no discernible US interest at stake.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5 &#8211;\u00a0<\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0 <em>Tearing up the JCPOA<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 and then setting onerous, unacceptable conditions for its resurrection. Steps counter-productive whether the U.S.\u2019s goal is foreclosing any prospect of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon or regime change (Washington\u2019s preferred solution)<\/p>\n<p>An abysmal record unmatched since the infamous performance of the WW I generals on the Western front \u2013 equally honored with medals and laurels.<\/p>\n<p><em>This long litany of failure and incompetence is overshadowed by the strategic blindness of treating Russia and China as implacable enemies<\/em>.\u00a0By doing so, Washington has not only obviated any alternative strategy for developing a stable, long-term relationship. It also has cemented a formidable power bloc that is now well able to contest the United States in whatever sphere we want to cross swords with them. (Recent commentaries expound on the illogicalities and erroneous presumptions of our approach to both great powers. No need to restate them here).<\/p>\n<p>This mosaic of misconceived strategy and rampantly amateurish maneuvers strongly suggests that US\u2019 foreign policy elites are living in a delusional world \u2013 dissociated from reality. That raises three basic questions:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>what are the causes?<\/li>\n<li>why the uniformity of attitudes towards foreign affairs by the political class? and<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0why is there so little dissent from policies that have produced a steady stream of abject setbacks?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>II.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>North Americans are struggling to draw into focus their exalted image of themselves and reality. They are not doing a very good job of it. The gap is wide and growing. That is due in good measure to what has been happening beyond the country\u2019s shores as well as at home, and over which it lacks the skills and the means to exercise decisive influence. Our response has been one of avoidance and reaffirmation of thought and deed. We seem to fear that if we stare at reality squarely, we will find reality staring back at us in a discomforting way.<\/p>\n<p><em>Fading prowess is one of the most difficult things for humans to cope with \u2013 whether it be an individual or a nation.\u00a0 By nature, we prize our strength and competence; we dread decline and its intimations of extinction. This is especially so in the United States where for many the individual and the collective personna are inseparable. No other country tries so relentlessly to live its legend as does the U.S<\/em>. Today, events are occurring that contradict the US narrative of a nation with a unique destiny. That creates cognitive dissonance.<\/p>\n<p><em>The US exalted sense of self is rooted in the belief that we are pace-setters and world beaters in every domain.\u00a0 The state of affairs sketched above &#8211; marked by impulsive enterprises that underline our foredoomed, audacious ambition to gain global dominance &#8211; does not <\/em><em>represent cool strategic judgment<\/em><em>. <\/em>It is the national equivalent of ostentatious iron-pumping by bodybuilders worried about losing muscle tone. Those worries never disappear, though, even as one becomes muscle-bound striving ever more energetically to reassure oneself that nothing is creeping up behind you. The mirror is much preferred to the backward glance. More important, they fool themselves into the false belief that other, more relevant adjustments to reality are either unnecessary or intolerable.<em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>At the psychological level, this approach is understandable since it plays to the United States\u2019 strength: overweening self-confidence coupled to material strength &#8211; thereby perpetuating the national myths of being destined to remain the world\u2019s No. 1 forever, and of being in a position to shape the world system according to North American principles and interests. President Obama declaimed: \u201cLet me tell you something.\u00a0 The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth.\u00a0 Period.\u00a0 It\u2019s not even close. Period.\u00a0 It\u2019s not even close.\u00a0 It\u2019s not even close!\u201d\u00a0 So?\u00a0 Is this meant as a revelation? What is the message? To whom?\u00a0 Is it any different than someone shouting: \u201cALLAH AKBAR!\u201d Words that are neither a prelude to action nor inspire others to act \u2013 nor even impart information &#8211; are just puffs of wind.\u00a0 As such, they are yet another avoidance device \u2013 a flight from reality.<\/p>\n<p><em>The tension associated with a nation so constituted encountering objective reality does not force heightened self-awareness or a change in behavior if the dominant feature of that reality is the attitudes and expressed opinions of others who share the underlying delusions<\/em><em>.<\/em> Today, there is no foreign policy debate whatsoever. In addition, our vassal governments in Europe and elsewhere either have a national interest in preserving the warped US view of the world (Israel, Poland) or have been so denatured over the decades that they are incapable 0f doing other than to follow Washington obediently \u2013 despite already having tumbled over a number of cliffs and staring at a potentially fatal abyss re. China and Russia.\u00a0 Reality testing, in these circumstances, leads to conformity in viewing the world through the shared delusional prism \u2013 rather than it being a potential corrective.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>North Americanism provides a Unified Field Theory of self-identity, collective enterprise, and the Republic\u2019s enduring meaning. When one element is felt to be jeopardy, the integrity of the whole edifice becomes vulnerable. <\/em>\u00a0In the past, US mythology energized the country in ways that helped it to thrive.\u00a0 Today, it is a dangerous hallucinogen that traps North Americans in a time warp more and more distant from reality.<\/p>\n<p>There is a muted reflection of this strained condition in the evident truth that North Americans have become an insecure people. They grow increasingly anxious about who they are, what they are worth and what life will be like down the road. This is an individual and collective phenomenon. They are related insofar as much of our self-identity and self-esteem is bound up with the civic religion of Americanism. To a considerable degree, it\u2019s been like this since the very beginning. A country that was \u201cborn against history\u201d had no past to define and shape the present.\u00a0 A country that was born against tradition had no rooted and common sense of meaning and value that cut deeply into the national psyche. A country that was born against inherited place and position left each individual at once free to acquire status and obliged to do so for insignia of rank were few.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That changed over the course of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century. Within just a few decades, the US became a great world power, a superpower, a champion of democracy and freedom and the defender of the West against Soviet led communism. It was the \u201cheroic\u2019 century which culminated in the triumph of victory in the Cold War. After the collapse of Communism, the United States ruled the roost. In its own eyes, this unique hyper-power had seen history confirm its anointed role as both model and agent for the construction of a better world. US \u201cexceptionalism\u201d now meant emulation of America \u2013 pure and simple.<\/p>\n<p>That confirmation should have strengthened the belief in the pageant of progress.\u00a0 It should have given a boost to self-esteem. It should have compensated for the creeping insecurities associated with socio-economic-cultural changes within the United States. That has not proven to be the case. Strenuous displays of patriotism have a contrived cast to them. They suggest strained efforts to overcome doubt more than they do genuine pride and conviction. National self-confidence is not demonstrated by gigantic flags seen everywhere from used car lots to hot sheet motels, the ubiquitous lapel pin, the loud and gaudy demonstrations of chauvinism at sporting matches, the bombast of shock jockeys, or the belittling and condescending treatment of other peoples. Rather, those are sure signs of weakness, doubt and insecurity. The compulsive militarization of foreign relations fits the pattern; the same psychology is at work. A society that sees reality through the screen of violent video games is juvenile and immature.<\/p>\n<p><em>We are close to a condition that approximates what the psychologists call \u201cdissociation.\u201d\u00a0 It is marked by an inability to see and to accept actualities as they are for deep seated emotional reasons<\/em>. Those you are dissociating are not aware that they are sublimating on a systematic basis. \u201cDissociation is commonly displayed on a continuum.\u00a0In mild cases, dissociation can be regarded as a coping mechanism or defense mechanism\u00a0in seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress\u00a0\u2013 including conflict.\u00a0Conflicts of purpose, conflict of aims, conflict of ideas, conflict between idealized reality and actual truth. Dissociative disorders are sometimes triggered by trauma (9\/11?).<\/p>\n<p>This psychological appraisal of the North American body politic does not explain adequately, however, either the exaggerated response to a single (if singular) event or the intensity and acuteness of the delusional thinking in the absence of evidence from the real world that the fearful images are justifiable.\u00a0 The objective truth of the real world is overwhelmed by the subjective virtual truths that shape their perception of reality.<\/p>\n<p><em>What do these developments foretell for the United States\u2019 relations with the rest of the <\/em>world?\u00a0 <em>The most obvious and important implication is that North Americans will be ever more dependent on maintaining that sense of exceptionalism and superiority that is the foundation of their national personality. A fragile psyche weak in self-esteem and prowess is sensitive to signs of its decline or ordinariness.<\/em> Hence, the obsession with curbing China. Hence, the country will continue to exert itself energetically on the global stage rather than become progressively more selective in its engagements and choice of methods for fulfilling them.<\/p>\n<p>Continuity is a lot easier than reorientation. It doesn\u2019t demand\u00a0 fresh thinking and different skills. Quite frankly, today, the caliber of high and mid-level personnel would have to be upgraded.\u00a0 Less amateurism and careerism, more experience and sophisticated knowledge. Equally, a President would have to seek out people with a different mindset. That is to say, a more nuanced view of the world, more acute awareness of other countries\u2019 political culture and leadership, and a talent for dealing with other states on a basis other than the assumption of US superiority and prerogative.\u00a0 Attempts to dictate the internal affairs of foreign countries would become the rare exception rather than the norm.\u00a0 \u00a0Moreover, it is necessary to loosen the hold on the nation&#8217;s mind of dogmatic ideas as deeply rooted in the US experience as they are out of synch with today&#8217;s world.<\/p>\n<p>All of this is a tall order. It appears to be beyond us.<\/p>\n<p><em>________________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/michael-Brenner-e1546611581191.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-125356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/michael-Brenner-e1546611581191.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a>Michael Brenner is professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh; a senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, SAIS-Johns Hopkins (Washington, D.C.), contributor to research and consulting projects on Euro-American security and economic issues. Publishes and teaches in the fields of US foreign policy, Euro-American relations, and the European Union. <strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"mailto:mbren@pitt.edu\">mbren@pitt.edu<\/a> &#8211; <\/strong><\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pitt.edu\/~mbren\/Background.htm\" >More<\/a>\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Pompey the Great made his triumphant return to Rome in 61 BCE, a spectacular ceremony was planned. The centerpiece was to be a towering throne where Pompey would pass through a Victory arch. But a small problem arose: the throne was 4 feet taller than the height of the arch. That is a neat metaphor for the uneasy position in which Uncle Sam finds himself these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":125356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[867,70],"class_list":["post-202627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-anglo-america","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202627","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=202627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}