[Oe List ...] Crisis of the West, Opportunity for the Rest?

[Elsa Batica]

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| U.S.-ChinaUpdateCommittee for a Sane U.S.-China PolicyIssue #67 ~ July, 2024 ~ Subscribe at: sanechinainfo at gmail.comsaneuschinapolicy.org / follow us on Twitter at @NoWarWithChina |

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Editor’s Introduction

Walden Bello is among the world’s most insightful political and strategic analysts. His analysis of the Crisis of Empire, given in a webinar organized by the Asia Europe People’s Forum, is among the most insightful analyses you can find.
A former member of the Philippine House of Representatives, Walden is currently co-chair of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South and honorary research fellow at the sociology department at the State University of New York at Binghamton. As a leader figure in the opposition the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, he was forced into exile. After the EDSA revolution, which ousted Marcos, Walden played a leading role in the successful campaign to oust U.S. miliary bases from the Philippines.
Crisis of the West, Opportunity for the Rest? Global NATO: Implications and Resistance

By Walden Bello*
Whether we call it “polycrisis,” like Columbia University Professor Adam Tooze, or “the age of catastrophe,” like the distinguished Marxist Alex Callinicos, there is no doubt that we are living in a period where the very foundations of the contemporary world order are cracking. There is that enigmatic line Gramsci used to describe his era that is also appropriate for ours: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” 
This short presentation will focus on a key dimension of the polycrisis: the unravelling of the global hegemony of the United States.
The downspin of the US empire has had a number of causes, but key among them are military overextension, neoliberal globalization, and the the crisis of the liberal political and ideological order. Let us discuss each in turn.

Overextension and Osama

Overextension refers to the gap between the ambitions of a hegemon and its capacity to achieve those ambitions. It is almost synonymous with the concept of overreach as used by the historian Paul Kennedy, the slight difference being that overextension as I use it is principally a military phenomenon. The struggling empire the US is today is a far cry from the unipolar power it was a quarter of a century ago, in 2000. If we ask ourselves what led to this situation, we inevitably come across one individual: Osama bin Laden. 
 
The aim of bin Laden’s attack on the Twin Towers on Sept 11, 2001 was precisely to provoke the overextension of the empire by forcing it to fight on several fronts in the Muslim world that would be inspired to revolt by his dramatic action. But instead of igniting revolt, Osama’s act ignited revulsion and disapproval among most Muslims. Sept 11 would have been a big failure had not George W. Bush seen it as an opportunity to use American power to reshape the world to reflect the Washington’s unipolar status. He took Osama’s bait and launched the US into two unwinnable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The results have been devastating for America’s power and prestige.  |

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A former member of the Philippine House of Representatives, Walden Bello is currently co-chair of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South and honorary research fellow at the sociology department at the State University of New York at Binghamton. |

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Elsa Batica St Paul, MN
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