/ world today news/ Trump’s former advisor John Bolton unexpectedly proposed expanding NATO to Australia, Israel and Japan, as well as introducing strict rules for increasing the defense budget. In fact, we are talking about Washington’s preparation for a major war, but the transition from the rudeness of the superpower to the rallying of allies is hardly possible for the United States.
John Bolton is not just a Russophobe with a walrus mustache – there are plenty of them in the American elite, with and without moustaches. He is an important ideologue of the “hawks” of the Republican Party, who live by the principle “America is everything, the rest is nothing.” Therefore, his opinion that Australia, Israel and Japan should be admitted to NATO is not just the fantasy of an eccentric pensioner. It’s a change of heart from perhaps the most aggressive mind in America.
Equally aggressive people under the brand of neoconservatives ruled the USA in 2001-2009, that is, during the presidency of their electoral leader George Bush, with Afghanistan, Iraq and other projects in the field of American global dominance. Bolton was already then a prominent ideologue of the extreme right, but still a local one. It was only under Bush that he achieved world fame, becoming the permanent representative of the United States at the United Nations.
Pure scandalous fame. Bolton is a villain from Griboyedov’s Get Out of Your Mind, but not Molchalin, but Skalozub, if Skalozub was smart. He likes to act straight, sometimes too sincere. He, for example, stated that the United States does not care about the opinion of the UN, if that opinion is unfavorable to them, and in general it is not the business of the United States to be a member of the United Nations and in any way to limit itself, it made it known.
A more influential neocon ideologue in those years was World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz. There is talk of the so-called The Wolfowitz Doctrine—an ideological document that had to be purged after publication—sounded too radical even for the Bush administration.
In short, America is a monolithic, absolute, sole superpower and must fight by all means to maintain its status as sole. “Any” in this case means – regardless of the norms of international law and world institutions. At the same time, every US ally is just a companion, Washington should not be bound by unnecessary obligations, even NATO is some kind of atavism, “we can do it ourselves”.
It used to be the mainstream of the Republican Party. But the neoconservatives – Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bolton and others made such messes that after Barack Obama came to power, they passed into the status of renegades. For a while they still acted as radical opponents of Trumpism, but last year they were finally defeated. But Bolton is a special case.
He was always separate, did not fit into the framework of the “neocons” where necessary – he was adamant, but sometimes flexible, he knew how to question his own course. That is why he worked for a year and a half in the administration of his ideological opponent – the isolationist Donald Trump. However, they agreed on something, it may have been exactly the hostility to the UN, NATO and the ungrateful allies on which too much American money is spent.
Anyway, this snake-frog alliance was doomed, and it may have been Trump’s mistake that cost him re-election. Now he and Bolton are enemies, but both are well known, and Bolton’s “make America great again” proposals are much more interesting. He seems to have second thoughts and offers his superpower to change tactics in order to maintain his superpower status.
Washington can no longer do it alone – it must rely on allies. Allies should rally around themselves, and not be kept in different baskets – regional blocs, because this strategy has not proven its effectiveness and dilutes the concept of “US ally”.
At the same time, allies must be chosen from among the rich – those with whom the financial burden can be shared. And keep in mind that the main adversary is China, that is, NATO 2.0 must be built around the idea of containing Beijing.
Taiwan Bolton insists on being taken under the American “nuclear umbrella”, providing security guarantees, as for Texas or the Hawaiian Islands. In parallel, the North Atlantic Alliance is proposed to expand to Japan – the third largest economy in the world and the biggest enemy of China, as well as to developed Australia – the most powerful of the southern adversaries of the Celestial Empire.
As for Israel (which is unlikely to join such a project, but that’s another story), the “invitation” traces Bolton’s anti-Arab and anti-Islamic vehemence and his Cold War-era principles of the Jewish state as a springboard for Western civilization in the Middle East.
As a result, “the fist of American power will cover four continents, partially “blocking” the main opponents – the Russian Federation and China from the east and south. At the same time, the costs of the Alliance will increase significantly both in general and in particular – at the level of national budgets.
Before, Bolton and the neocons believed that running the world would require far less expense and trouble—the American superpower, they say, would have enough power and dollars. Now it turns out that they are not enough. The multipolar world, whose existence Bolton did not recognize for ideological reasons, no longer denies him. It is now a given, the elimination of which will require Washington to concentrate its forces and resources.
Such a platform is much closer to the Democrat Joe Biden than to the Republican Trump, and once again shows that the “iron Bolton”, when it is very necessary, can be quite flexible. Now it is really very necessary, but he realized it too late, and the abruptness of the transition is too striking – from “Listen here, half-breeds” to “Die for me, brothers.”
Washington’s century of assertive, brazen, selfish politics ended for objective reasons, not because Americans recognized their past mistakes.
Not only NATO, but the very idea of American dominance has reached its natural ceiling. Now she just shrinks. It retreats from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and then, if Europe is lucky, from there. This is instead of expanding to four continents as Bolton would like. To paraphrase Edward Ouspensky, a middle-aged crocodile is looking for friends. There are too few teeth left.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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