Page 51 - AEI Insights Vol. 7 2021

Bajrektarevic, 2021

Admired and feared, Pentagon further fans our planetary belief in tomorrow’s deliverability –
if we only keep our faith in dollar (and hydrocarbons’ energized economy), and so on and on
in perpetuated circle of mutual reinforcements.

(Supplementing the Monroe Doctrine, President Howard Taft introduced the so-called ‘dollar
diplomacy’ – in early XX c. – that “substitutes dollars for bullets”. This was one of the first
official acknowledgements of the Wall Street – Pentagon symbiotic link.)

These two pillars of the US might from the East coast (the US Treasury/Wall Street and
Pentagon) together with the two pillars of the West coast – both financed and amplified by the
US dollar, and spread through the open sea-routs (Silicone Valley and Hollywood), are an
essence of the US posture. Country that hosts such a dream factory, as the US does Hollywood,
is easy to romanticize – though other 3 pillars are to take and to coerce.
This very nature of power explains why the Americans have missed to take the mankind into
completely other direction; towards the non-confrontational, decarbonized, de-monetized/de-
financialized and de-psychologized, the self-realizing and green humankind. In short, to turn
history into a moral success story. They had such a chance when, past the Gorbachev’s
unconditional surrender of the Soviet bloc, and the Deng’s Copernicus-shift of China, the US
– unconstrained as a lonely superpower – solely dictated terms of reference; our common
destiny and direction/s to our future/s.

Winner is rarely a game-changer

Sadly enough, that was not the first missed opportunity for the US to soften and delay its
forthcoming, imminent multidimensional imperial retreat. The very epilogue of the WWII
meant a full security guaranty for the US: Geo-economically – 54% of anything manufactured
in the world was carrying the Made in USA label, and geostrategically – the US had
uninterruptedly enjoyed nearly a decade of the ‘nuclear monopoly’. Up to this very day, the
US scores the biggest number of N-tests conducted, the largest stockpile of nuclear weaponry,
and it represents the only power ever deploying this ‘ultimate weapon’ on other nation.
To complete the irony, Americans enjoy geographic advantage like no other empire before.
Save the US, as Ikenberry notes: “…every major power in the world lives in a crowded
geopolitical neighborhood where shifts in power routinely provoke counterbalancing”. Look
the map, at Russia or China and their packed surroundings. The US is blessed with its insular
position, by neighboring oceans. All that should harbor tranquility, peace and prosperity,
foresightedness.

Why the lonely might, an empire by invitation did not evolve into empire of relaxation, a
generator of harmony? Why does it hold (extra-judicially) captive more political prisoners on
Cuban soil than the badmouthed Cuban regime has ever had? Why does it remain obsessed
with armament for at home and abroad? Why existential anxieties for at home and security
challenges for abroad? Eg. 78% of all weaponry at disposal in the wider MENA theater is
manufactured in the US, while domestically Americans – only for their civilian purpose – have
1,2 small arms pieces per capita.)
Why the fall of Berlin Wall 30 years ago marked a beginning of decades of stagnant or failing
incomes in the US (and elsewhere in the OECD world) coupled with alarming inequalities.
What are we talking about here; the inadequate intensity of our tireless confrontational push or
about the false course of our civilizational direction?

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