Dancing On The Edge Of Oblivion

Abstract

This article discusses the current precarious state of the US economy vis-à-vis the rise of China and the US proxy war in Ukraine. It discusses the problematic of a capitalist economy and the fundamental requirement of capital accumulation to avert and circumvent capitalist cyclical crises. It also discusses the methodology of accumulation, the law of value and the necessity of geographic hegemonic control in order to sustain homeostasis within a capitalist economy. Brought into the discussion is the effect such a dynamic imposes upon not only the hegemons (US, EU, Russia, and China) within the global economy but also the population and environment that such an unrelenting mission imposes upon the ecology and geopolitical state of affairs. In response to the endogenous exigencies of capital accumulation and the exogenous threats that such projects as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Russia’s interests as an Eastern European hegemon present, US foreign policy is designed as strategies (“strategy of containment” in reference to Russia after World War II and now the “strategy of denial” to contain the influence China presents as a world hegemon). Also, policy changes that are codified, such as the Bush Doctrine and the National Security Strategy of the United States of America provided legal rationalization and protection for the US to pursue practices that contravened international law i.e. the Geneva Conventions. China has emerged as a world hegemon and is ubiquitously engaging on the world stage especially in Eastern, Western and South Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, South and Central America, and Mexico. The country is becoming a threat to US capitalist interest with their “natural partnerships,” with their China–Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF), with their 1+2+3 Cooperation Frameworks, and with their 4 Action Plans within these countries. These Chinese initiatives as actions are seen to be destabilizing what the US calls “the balance of power” and “the rules-based order” within the global economy. The US is counteracting the threat to US capital accumulation with its neoliberal and neocon agenda, mostly formulated by the main actors within the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) who play an important role in formulating US foreign policy in the interest of US capital and the US military industrial complex. The US is implementing this with the postulates outlined in the 2021 book The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict by Eldridge A. Colby and his fellow cohorts within the CFR who formulated the theory and particulars of the strategy that the US is currently pursuing.