• somename [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    I don’t think the empire is being maintained well honestly. Real political power and industrial capacity has been hollowed out over time. Yeah the EU got put back in the US’s camp, but it’s not an ascendant position really, more just a consolation prize.

    Like, the War in Ukraine has depleted US arms to a degree they can’t replenish in real degree, and it showed that the doctrine they push has deep, inherent flaws. I don’t think the US is really as terrifying a figure as it was even 10 years ago. A lot of the mystique is gone, and we’re seeing that as more and more factions pounce on the weakness the empire is showing.

    Just because the wealth is still coming in well for the ruling elite doesn’t mean the imperial machinery is being well maintained.

    • CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Real political power and industrial capacity has been hollowed out over time

      I find this to be overstated. The entire international order, in structure, mandate, and ideology, is still an instrument of North Atlantic empire and furthermore the US is basically competing with OPEC by itself as an oil superpower.

      • LarkinDePark@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        11 months ago

        The entire international order

        Are you sure you don't mean the West? China and Russia are things as it's the global South.

        is still an instrument of North Atlantic empire and furthermore

        What is an "instrument"? It's hard to be clear on what exactly is being claimed here.

        Sure, the US has its thing they call "The Rules Based Order", which is just a euphemism for them making it up as the go along, but only westerners are subject to this propaganda. It's not a real thing in international law.

        • CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          11 months ago

          Not just the rules based order, globalization itself. International development itself. Enlightenment thinking. All of these things built the North Atlantic empire into what it is today, and they have been used to shape the world either into its own image or into a state of internalized inferiority. Did you know the creation of the development industry and the international community post world War two parallels the creation of US Federal Indian Policy post the war of independence? It is a land grab strategy first and foremost, a way to conquer in peace time, and to set the terms of the game that everyone still plays.

          Not to dismiss the changes in the last couple of years, but it is complete dogma to assume anyone is immune by virtue of nationality. Russia and China, the BRICS+, are not divorced from this at all. They rely on it all to accomplish their goals. Dreams that are a product of a wealth-arms race and centuries of imperial threat. Their agency is limited (as everyones' is). As limited as any semi peripheral state would be or any underclass is. There is an amount of sovereignty but not outside the system they didn't create. A system predicated on and reproduced with accumulation by dispossession.

          Good for Russia and China. Seriously. Better than being Lybia or Syria or Palestine. But it is not some obvious grand challenge to the status quo, they are still too instrumental to it.

          • LarkinDePark@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            11 months ago

            Did you know the creation of the development industry and the international community post world War two parallels the creation of US Federal Indian Policy post the war of independence?

            I'm sorry I don't see the relevance to your claims. None of my questions have been answered. We were talking about the relative "psychotic" nature of American society.

            The rest of your comment reads as abstract generic AI generated copypasta, it's like we're not discussing anything at all.

            Good for Russia and China. Seriously. Better than being Lybia or Syria or Palestine. But it is not some obvious grand challenge to the status quo, they are still too instrumental to it.

            You don't think Russia or China have been challenging the status quo recently? This seems a very unserious claim.