社会研究所-美国正在发动一场新冷战（英）90

The United StatesIs Waging aNew Cold War:A Socialist PerspectiveJohn Bellamy Foster,John Ross,and Deborah Venezialewith an Introduction by Vijay PrashadThe United States Is Waging a New Cold War:A Socialist PerspectiveJohn Bellamy Foster,John Ross,and Deborah Veneziale with an Introduction by Vijay PrashadSeptember 2022Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International(CC BY-NC 4.0)This publication is issued under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International(CC BY-NC 4.0)license.The human-readable summary of the license is available athttps:/creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/./ContentsIntroduction 05Vijay PrashadWhat Is Propelling the United States intoIncreasing International Military Aggression?09John Ross(Luo Siyi)Who Is Leading the United States to War?33Deborah Veneziale“Notes on Exterminism”for the Twenty-First-Century Ecology and Peace Movements 69John Bellamy FosterIntroductionVijay PrashadAt the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos(Switzerland)on May 23,2022,former U.S.Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made some remarks about Ukraine that struck a nerve.Rather than be caught up“in the mood of the moment,”Kissinger said,the Westled by the United Statesneeds to enable a peace agreement that satisfies the Russians.“Pursuing the war beyond this point,”Kissinger said,“would not be about the freedom of Ukraine,but a new war against Russia itself.”Most of the commentary from the Western foreign policy establishment rolled their eyes and dismissed Kissingers comments.Kissinger,no peacenik,nonetheless indicated the great danger of escalation towards not only the establishment of a new iron curtain around Asia but perhaps openand lethalwarfare between the West and Russia as well as China.This sort of unthinkable outcome was too much,even for Henry Kissinger,whose boss,former President Richard Nixon,spoke frequently of the Madman Theory of international relations;Nixon told his chief of staff Bob Haldeman that he had his“hand on the nuclear button”to terrify Ho Chi Minh into capitulation.During the lead-up to the U.S.s illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003,I spoke to a senior member of the U.S.State Department who told me that the pre-vailing theory in Washington amounts to a simple slogan:short-term pain for long-term gain.He explained that the general view is that the nations elites are willing to tolerate short-term pain for other countriesand perhaps for working people in the United States,who could experience economic difficulties due to the disruptions and carnage created by war.However,if all goes well,this price will result in long-term gain as the United States would be able to maintain what it has sought to maintain5The United States Is Waging a New Cold War:A Socialist Perspective 6since the end of the Second World War,which is primacy.If all goes well is the premise that sent shivers down my back as he spoke,but what rattled me just as much was the callousness about who must face the pain and who would enjoy the gain.It was quite cynically said in Washington that it was worth the price that Iraqis and working-class U.S.soldiers be negatively impacted(and die),so long as large oil and financial companies could enjoy the fruits of a conquered Iraq.This attitudeshort term pain,long-term gainis the defining hallucination of the elites in the United States,who are unwilling to tolerate the project of building human dignity and the longevity of nature.Short term pain,long-term gain defines the dangerous escalation by the United States and its Western allies against Russia and China.What is striking about the posture of the United States is that it seeks to prevent a historical process that seems inevitable,which is the process of Eurasian integration.After the collapse of the U.S.housing market and the major credit crisis in the Western banking sector,the Chinese government,alongside other Global South countries,pivoted to build platforms that were not dependent upon the markets of North America and Europe.These platforms included the creation of BRICS(Brazil,Russia,India,China,and South Africa)in 2009 and the announcement of One Belt,One Road(later the Belt and Road Initiative or BRI)in 2013.Russias energy supply and its massive metal and mineral holdings,as well as Chinas industrial and technological capacity,drew many countries into association with the BRI despite their political orientation,with Russias export of energy undergirding this association.These countries included Poland,Italy,Bulgaria,and Portugal,while Germany is now Chinas largest trading partner in goods.The historical fact of Eurasian integration threatened the primacy of the United States and of the Atlantic elites.It is this threat that drives the7/The United States Is Waging a New Cold War:A Socialist Perspectivedangerous attempt by the United States to use any means to“weaken”both Russia and China.Old habits continue to dominate in Washington,which has long sought nuclear primacy to negate the theory of dtente.The Un