by Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture:
U.S. foreign policy, drenched in the hubris that the U.S. won the Cold War militarily (in Afghanistan); won it economically (liberal markets); and culturally too, (Hollywood) — and therefore rightly deserves, as Trump puts it, the “fun” of “running both the country the world”. Well, that policy is now in contention for the first time.
Will this matter?
This month, the RAND Organisation, an institution whose shadow has long lain across U.S. foreign policy matters, has challenged the Cold War hubris in respect to China.
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Though the report focuses on America’s preoccupation with the threat of China’s ascendency, the implications of questioning the doctrine — that no challenger to U.S. hegemony, financial or military, can be tolerated — does cut to the absolute heart of U.S. foreign policy practice.
The key finding from RAND is that “China and the U.S. should strive to achieve a modus vivendi” together through “each accepting the political legitimacy of the other, constraining efforts to undermine each other, at least to a reasonable degree”.
To propose that each side should acknowledge and accept the legitimacy of the other, rather than see ‘the other’ as a malignant threat, would in itself represent a small revolution.
Were it to apply to China, then why not to Russia or Iran too?
More telling: RAND prescribes that the U.S. leadership in particular should reject notions of ‘absolute victory’ over China – as well as to accept the One China Policy by stopping provoking China through military-minded visits to Taiwan designed specifically to keep China threatened and on edge.
This comes on the eve of Trump’s scheduled meeting with President Xi Jinping in Kuala Lumpur, in which Trump is seeking a ‘trade deal’ with China that reaffirms his dominance and gives him space for his radical plans to re-structure America’s financial landscape – if he can.
Can the pivot proposed by RAND truly be accepted in DC? RAND does possess real weight in Washington – so does this report reflect a split in the structural architecture of the Dark State? Other signs (in the Middle East/ West Asia) point in the opposite direction.
The U.S. has been running the same foreign policy playbook for decades. So, is the U.S. even capable of such radical cultural transformation, as advocated by RAND?
The West is in decline – yes. But does that make it easier, or harder, for it to accept some RAND servings of common sense? It does seem, in respect to China, that a technical view has formed within U.S. defence circles that ‘no way’ can the U.S. take on China militarily.
Yet any profound change takes time to fully register and can be overturned by unexpected events. There are a number of potential black swans circling us, at this time.
And who would lead such a change in national self-perception? Would real (institutional) change emerge from top-down, or come from bottom up?
By ‘bottom up’, could this emerge as a populist ‘America First’-driven impulse resulting from Trump and the GOP losing the House at the Midterms?
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