To US optimists here: coasting and bumbling along on a nice inheritance without investing in your own capacity going forward and ignoring others that are catching up doesn't sound like a wonderfully inspiring strategy...
The US never intended to use industrial supremacy to continue their hegemony, they’ve always intended to use anti-competitor propaganda, financial manipulation and ‘might makes right’ with its competitors across the globe to maintain it.
James D Robertson Yes the promise of hope and change championed by candidate Obama seemed quite distant when President Obama declared himself a "moderate republican" Obama's broken promise paves the way to the Molotov cocktail that is Trump.
It seems like the authors are giving Trump credit for a relatively powerful intellect, and they are suggesting that this intellect is the guiding force for his administration. IMO Trump is much more similar to Chance the Gardener, in the movie Being There. In this case, the randomness of Trump's administration is mistaken as a plan.
Multiple view point. Knowing neurological atypical individuals like Trump he is antidote to race for the serfdom. It appears that way! There was Dorasii book i read in my teens SF by R Heinlein.... Called tactics of mistakes. I really like the title as it implies winning despite mistakes. I think according to Peter Ziehan USA is going to be top despite who ever is the president geopolitically. USA as cultural civilization has still not grown up yet! I think usa will be alright if india hooks up with it otherwise its accepting or fighting thucidides trap. I rather usa than china as head bully!
There's a reason they say that the lies must be repeated over and over and over and over. The People will likely begin to believe them. I'm not as susceptible to brainwashing/propaganda as some.
@Geir Characteristic of the "liberal order" is anonymous and spread out economic dictatorship. They all know who butters their bread and even when criticizing, they sound like kids who do not dare to say "no" to their mother. There's just too much to be lost: good life, career, money, social acceptance etc. Final result is legions of spineless, beating around the bush "academics" and "journalists". If they grow a spine and formulate concise and clear criticism they are simply marginalized. Not by decree as in "dictatorships" but by "invisible hand of the market" (hydra of country's owners).
I think the US has less pull geopolitically now than 50 years ago but 50 years ago, for all intents and purposes America ran the world, or at least tried to. That being said, in terms of cultural cache, the US probably has more influence than it has ever had, largely due to the internet. In the traditional western world at least, everyone who uses the internet will do so via American companies and encounter an Americanised world wide web. Although China are increasing their geopolitical and economic standings, due to the insular nature of the government and heavy censorship of 'dissenting' material, their cultural influence is minimal. Because of the push of silicon valley, American corporations seem more influential than they ever have been and in that sense the hegemony certainly hasn't ended. There is only IBM, and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
Your logic only hold, if you ignore the fact that the chinese sphere of influence has at least quadruple the number of humans in it. lol You show typical US "exceptionalism".
Completely missing from this discussion is any mention of capitalism or economic interests. As if anyone falls for this "liberal" vs. "illiberal" and "democracy promotion" bs lol
Yeah while broadly this analysis is correct it does leave a lot of important aspects out that would reframe the discussion and better reflect reality. They’re talking exclusively about the neoliberal order and it’s benefits while sweeping aside the negatives, other than to say, effectively, that Francis Fukuyama was wrong and neoliberalism doesn’t necessitate progressive cultural change.
same way ended for everyone else: becoming irrelevant and losing confidence. Soviet Union was exporting revolution in Africa and invading Afghanistan while its roads and bridges were collapsing. They build new nukes while could not provide enough food for its citizens. They trained militias in Angola while the police back home was not properly funded and trained. do we see similarities with US? yes of course.
"Exporting revolution" - ask all of the African regimes how much "support" they got from the USSR. Not much. Now ask yourself a second question: if those African regimes asked for help, how is it that they were exported from Moscow? The FAPLA/MPLA in Angola requested help from the USSR and didn't get much - in fact the Cubans rejected Moscow's position not to interfere and forced Moscow's hand. In any case, the South Africans were the ones who advanced into Angola under the auspices of UNITA, and planned to hit Namibia next - that is, Angola was meant to be a puppet regime for South Africa. The revolution in Angola, as elsewhere in Africa, was real - and they received limited support from the USSR, hence why the United States did in fact manage to establish some dictators of their own which persist to this day. This is old, flawed, xenophobic, Cold War thinking.
Secondly, the USSR invaded Afghanistan precisely because there was a revolution - one in which the Taliban assassinated the elected Communist leader of Afghanistan because they opposed urbanization, secularization, and education for women. The Taliban saw the USSR as a modernizing power that wanted to colonize it. The USSR went into Afghanistan to defend the elected government. The United States on the other hand made it an explicit policy to create a "bear trap" and turn Afghanistan into Vietnam. Far from being about supporting the freedom of the Taliban, they participated in making Afghanistan a warzone for their foreign policy. Zbigniew Brzezinski was explicit about using Afghanistan to destroy the Soviet Union, and funneled arms through the Pakistani ISI, chiefly stinger missiles which allowed the rebels to attack Soviet helicopters. The result was that the helicopters flew higher and began to "fight back" by destroying entire villages from afar, ala the French "rat hunts" in Algeria.
@@laserprawn The US also used the Saudis as a proxy to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. After the war ended the US tried to use the same strategy in the Caucasus Region to further disintegrate Russia. It did not work.
25:30 in that though you also have consider comparative power. You just said, even in its decline the US controls around a quarter of the world's economy. I don't think saying that all actors have agency really does justice to the power dynamics. Or the moral implications of bad behaviour. What the US did to Iraq was real and, at least theoretically, measurable. I feel equating possible and potential actions of weaker actors with real world actions and consequences of the stronger ones is bad arguing. It's not like you can predict their actions. You are allowing them to be framed by the same country that has had troops in Afghanistan for like twenty years now
While I can sort off agree, China is pretty explicit about their agenda and their human rights record is abysmal. That won’t magically change if they increase their reach. In fact it’s likely to get worse as they can get away with more. That doesn’t have any bearing on US atrocities though, which are undeniable and inexcusable and currently a greater threat globally.
That a decline has taken place in the last fifty years it's undeniable. But the heights of power from where USA has been declining were so high that it's taken a long time and it will take a long time more before the second power gets even close to the USA in power.
Agree, though the view from the top of the cliff is wonderful til the sudden slip. The current economic, social and biological crises are straining the U.S. global fiscal system and pushing further American military options as an eventual out while the American people awaken to domestic dystopia. The US $ is still king and I had thought to see it dethroned within my lifespan, at age 52, and now see as likely a lot sooner: IMO Chris Hedges discusses the topic of this podcast much more accurately and presciently than both of these guests (though I'm always in to hear Mark Blyth fascinatingly dissect the new world disorder as well)
@@adyear3168 yes. The military paradigma has changed radically though, and the way the USA make war is so expensive (for the people at large who haven't got any more to give to the military industrial complex) that the military options are getting limited too.
@@cyrneco All those trillions and a lot fewer targets than before occurs to me as well. Pulling out of many treaties especially nuclear is counterproductive. Moving to tactical nuclear weaponry is a real and present and future danger - and we don't have a JFK&RFK to manage such a crisis if skirmishes blow up no pun intended. I've heard it said well that the United States is now a country that cannot afford to stay at peace for a long period of time. Hopefully saner heads will prevail behind the militant rhetoric of both Parties and the mass media. Other nation powers can also provide balance with no need to engage militarily while the U.S. implodes domestically. Wait and watch wins the battle by default. Interesting times.
Maybe a shift in the center of gravity of World Power? Look at what’s happening in the Indo-Pacific region. Hegemony is always on the agenda when US & allies are still in a “Containment Strategy” regarding Chinese regional expansionism (Taiwan, SK, South China Sea, S-Pacific micro Nations... etc). How will that end up? Not well if you ask me.
Mark: maybe you don't feel this is your place but please set up a podcast about who "we/America" are. Many would like to assume that Trump is the one doing everything, but it takes a machine - it's not one person. So please point out the machine that is driving this systemic failure.
Have you looked up his lectures and interviews on TH-cam? His interview on the Michael Brook Show explains the Neoliberal Revolution and its first crisis - the crash of 2009 - very well. He hasn't really tackled the early 20th century in any detail however. That's unsurprising as Mark came to prominence because of his work on Neoliberalism, and Austerity in particular in the 20th century and early 21st century. Whether he will dip his toe into that arena as his discipline is Political Economy I don't know. I think it would be an interesting departure for him.
Why do political scientists refer to the governments of the West as "democracies?" By constitution the governments of the west are clearly oligarchies. In America there are 435 congressional reps, 100 senators and 2 presidents. So there are 537 elected federal officials for a population of 330 million people or .00001 of the population govern. This is clearly government by the few. No western state has been a democracy since ancient Athens. The American founders were familiar with the classics. They knew of the constitution of Athens and chose to model America on the constitution of Rome. This is what we got from the two executives on down. To claim that Western oligarchies are democracies is a big lie. When are political scientists going to use the true categories that apply to governments?
@@matthewwilliam1180 Rule of one person is either Kingship or Tyranny. Rule of a few people is either Aristocracy or Oligarchy. Rule of the people is either Polity or Democracy.
Really deep stuff. Can we get a follow-up on AIIB, its significance, and the previous Asian Monetary Fund suggested by Japan and how that got shot down?
Mostly facile analysis disconnected from viewing Political Economy as directly linked to Geopolitics in concrete terms and brushes aside the issue of Imperialism by merely pointing to Vulgar Anti-Imperialists as if they're representative of actual analyses of Imperialism. Can't say I expect anything else from Liberalism.
See the histories of the Byzantine Empire so see how many times it came back over a thousand years. America has a far stronger physical base than 'The City' ever had. So I think you're calling the Curtain too soon. IF the US wants to refirm its Allies in Europe, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Mexico etc as starters the future might turn be very different from your vision.
A nice discussion vis Treatys and agreements. The coming collapse of the whole system ( US or otherwise ) is about to come to a crumbling collapse and you talk about signing things or not? I won't scare you - so Revolution's off for now but if the Capitalists (US or not again ) do not go a for a Rooseveltian reflaltion of their economy and other alleged Democracies do the same then they will rue the day that they chose to be not capitalists at all over and above being poorer capitalists for a certain period. Then again - short termism has been the Hallmark of alleged Capitalists for the last forty Neo - Liberal years. It's on its way. By the way the Revolutionaries will not be negotiating or signing anything.
Sadly, I hope for some learned, and erudite commentary but unfortunately you get the ones who didn't read the title properly, have some pet theory to push, or just want to troll. That's TH-cam for you.
@@BigHenFor I'm here to listen to people who've done their homework. I've no idea how I end up down here! Good luck. ps, out of interest, any drivel in particular?
Interesting point about distinguishing American power from the American system and the failure to use the Dollar Hegemony to prevent the hollowing out of our R&D and domestic investment has already ended our stability and our role as "safe haven". We are headed towards a "Central Asian kleptocracy".
Overly intellectualised Trump (which put their sneering about apocryphal leftists into sharp relief) and missed out the foreign policy catastrophe that was Dubya, but lots of interesting chat.
What on this earth has lasted forever? And especially what human thing has existed since the emergence of humans and even more specifically what political/economic system has lasted forever. Using the word forever just negates any argument you make. Nothing is forever. Not even this earth.
according to Cooley & Nexon..... "We live in a period of great uncertainty about the fate of America's global leadership. Many believe that Donald Trump's presidency marks the end of liberal international order-the very system of global institutions, rules, and values that shaped the American international system since the end of World War II. ."... short the pleasure to have read what is considered "the best guide to understanding Foreign policy and Global orders ! Some policies on Global orders were listed in previous "guides " .. many of which still stands... if you have any doubt ..... Secretary H.Kissinger will guarantee all your doubts to fall within reason. you may not like his accent and that's your prerogative , yet ...you cant get more american than that. Right... the fate of America's global leadership ... You mean during more "certain period we lived in during Vietnam ? Korea ? IRAN 1953.. iran iraq...and all other certain times of the banana republics ..are this the Liberal international order, Rules you consider great "American Values" that is under pressure ... Write a book on how to improve the fate of the American People and domestic policy..... No foreign accents and or Kissinger ... that it self should be a motivation to change course ..
I wonder if it harms the average American or will it benefit us. I think the later if it reduces commitments overseas. Unfortunately we could have dark times ahead if the American hegemon decides to reinforce it's primacy with military intervention. We should embrace a multi-polar world.
@@antediluvianatheist5262 Yeah this is what I figured too. God I wish he was right but I think history and virtually everything that elites do and permit says otherwise.
Ross Perot predicted this would happen almost 30 years ago and the alterglobalization movement has been fighting corporate globalization for decades. Took you guys awhile to catch up.
I got waaaaay less out of this than I thought I would. Zero analysis of comparable historical examples, zero practical lessons learned towards alternative strategies beside "how can we undo how much America's power has degraded". I got absolutely no sens of any "approach to understanding the rise and decline of hegemonic orders"... just a run down of some stuff that has happened over the last three decades.-> WHY IS IT HAPPENING???
BigHenFor unfortunately, the talk neither explored how or why. Rather it was just little lefty academic foot stomping about how orange man bad and brainless lamenting about the way things were back in ‘the good old days’, before orange Superman destroyed everthing.
Most people already know why it's happening I think. It's because US politics is such a mess. And you assumed people are interested in fixing it, as long as US politics (influence of rich/powerful through campaign funding, etc.) doesn't get fixed nothing will get fixed. So their is nothing much to do.
Are we serious now? US first, and then the others followed, into the outsourcing of production, which is the main cause of outsourcing the technologies and eventually the creation of skilled workmanship abroad in countries other than those of the ideas, universities and production plans had been conceived. And all that knowing from the beginning that the target was the accumulated wealth of Western societies which was about to be ended some day. So it's more like the self fullfiling prophecy we are talking about..
You can't half tell who steers the direction of this show, no country has done more to bring down the US than Israel, Russia is this little cover story whilst they do it.
The human family needs an international order under law to provide for the needs of people. A brotherhood of man with a supra-national patriotism. Dreams are cheap, the dis-utopia is worse. If we will survive, we must united.
In the 70s we Canadians all wanted to move to California, now I wish I never set foot in that shit hole country ever again, religiosity, imperialism, ego-centrism, ignorance, crony capitalism, democracy at the point of a gun, etc... A country that spends more on it's military than the rest of the world scares everyone, aggression is not how you make friends.
Mark, I truly wish you'd invite Peter Zeihan on to discuss his counterpoint to the point of view presented by the authors here. America one's the Oceans; the world's currency; about to own the Premier World Trade agreements. America can let China die on the vine...without a war. America may well destroy itself, but no other country will.
roc China by no means owns the monopoly on low-cost manufacturing. Vietnam, Thailand etc. could all pick up the slack if China was excluded from global trade. Conversely, China is fully-dependent on foreign naval powers to provide security on the high seas so that it can import raw materials and export its goods to international markets; the US Navy is the only one powerful enough to do that for all the world's oceans.
@@matthewwilliam1180 You can't exclude only China, and keep the rest. We slap tariffs on China, head over to Vietnam with our shopping cart and SURPRISE THEY'RE RIGHT NEXT DOOR MORON YOU EVER LOOKED AT A MAP??? You'll just be buying the same Chinese crap with a Vietnamese markup, and Vietnam is pleased as piss because that's the joy of arbitrage, ZERO capital investment required.
Daniel Schmidt I'm sorry, who said anything about tariffs? If America wants to sink China it can just take its Navy and go home. Without the freedom of navigation guaranteed by the US, the world's shipments of raw resources are open to anyone who wants to take them. And since I can, in fact, read a map, I can tell you that Vietnam, Thailand etc. are closer to the supply of these resources than China is. Why settle for a markup when they can just have the whole thing?
BRING THE ACTUAL FACTS FROM WAR ZONE AND I SAW A VEDIO THAT A MAN FROM ESCAPING FROM THE RECENT BOMB NEARBY POLAND BORDER WHO SAYS. MORE-THAN 100 USA troops were killed Is this true?? Did you get any casualties report regarding this?? However Keep rocking
They are referring to Graham Allison's book "Destined For War - Can America And China Escape The Thucydides Trap" which is one empire having another coming up behind, mostly leading to war.
I think Mark is not seeing the dollar as what it is. The dollar itself has no value. It's a fiat currency backed by nothing. The only reason the dollar is being used worldwide is, because everyone has access to it. But that isn't a natural law. If you have crazy US governments it is absolutely conceivable, that large parts of the global economy could be cut off from access to the dollar. If that happens they will still need resources and trade with their neighbors. So they'd just use something else. Because they really don't need the dollar for that.
the entire argument of this book is a fallacy. it's not america vs china and/or russia. the establishment which runs america (the military industrial complex, corporations and banks) has no country allegiance. therefore, it's the establishment running america in a competitive partnership with china and/or russia (or leveraging this competitive dynamic when convenient e.g. cold war) to plunder all the resources of america. when will the american public realize that the enemy of the establishment running america is not china and/or russia, it is the american public. they are the marks in this long con - which has been running for the past 50 years under the guise of a neoliberal economic system aka neofeudalism
@ The EU has a major problem with its common currency, the Euro. Many EU countries must borrow in that "foreign" currency and thus come under the thumb of bond vigilantes, who invariably impose damaging austerity. It's inefficient to have one central bank serving multiple national governments. I'm not sure what they were thinking when they set the whole thing up.
Did you name this podcast with an intentional sense of irony? As a critic of NeoLiberalism and NeoConservatism I would assume that you're no fan of Cecil Rhodes and his nefarious machinations to initiate the drive toward global government by centralized finance. What gives? (If you have not read MacGregor and Docherty's book, I trust you will find it enriching and eye opening. The victors write the history, indeed.)
Different Rhodes, The William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at Brown University was established in 2007 with the generous support of William R. Rhodes. That is where Mark works.
@@varsityathlete9927 Ah! An important distinction. Thanks for the clarification, j. Perhaps its unfair, but upon review of William's Board Appointments, I don't know if it's significant enough of an improvement. Glad to know the Center has the wisdom to promote Mark's message, but with friends like the CFR it's hard not to ascribe some likelihood to the conjecture that message control animates their selection and endorsement of opposition voices. Of course, if anyone, no matter what their loyalties, is willing to institute a replacement for the yolk of Fiat Debt without invoking total surveillance under a single currency and centralized global management, I'll remain open. On that note, (hey Mark!) wouldn't a multiplicity of non-transferable currencies matched to geographic watersheds and associated representative governments be a nice idea? After all, economic regions are incapable of measuring their relative value to other economic regions without currency markets to determine the differences. Under single currency regimes, they can't distinguish equitable trading partners from rapacious ones. Without heterogeneous measures of value that are fixedly specific to place, any and all value can be siphoned from any one locale into any single entity's coffers, clearly an unethical and destructive system. Jane Jacobs was clearly on the money with her ideas about this role of currencies. It'd be a hell of an improvement for Global Trumpism if nationalist sentiment were transformed constructively from xenophobic social differences into mere pride of place with a focus on regional economic improvement and representative efficacy. Competition needn't be a winner-take-all zero-sum game, but having one currency necessarily makes it so.
To US optimists here: coasting and bumbling along on a nice inheritance without investing in your own capacity going forward and ignoring others that are catching up doesn't sound like a wonderfully inspiring strategy...
The gift of FDR that keeps on giving........
The demise of the US is hardly guaranteed.
@@Chrmngblly Once the reserve currency monopoly is broken, it will be.......
The US never intended to use industrial supremacy to continue their hegemony, they’ve always intended to use anti-competitor propaganda, financial manipulation and ‘might makes right’ with its competitors across the globe to maintain it.
US Hegemony ended in the late 1960’s. It has simply been an elaborate facade ever since. Smoke and mirrors.
Now I'm really depressed. Everybody thinks removing Trump will "go back to normal" but the world is at war, intellectually if not physically.
akeleven
I think there are many in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine et al that are very conscious of the current struggles physicality.
akeleven
Before losing consciousness one is certain George Floyd felt the physicality of this worlds injustice.
akeleven
I share your frustration with those who declare Trump the disease when he is merely a pustulous symptom!
James D Robertson
Yes the promise of hope and change championed by candidate Obama seemed quite distant when President Obama declared himself a "moderate republican"
Obama's broken promise paves the way to the Molotov cocktail that is Trump.
By war do you mean capitalism?
As people who benefited from US hegemony all the way, they lack emotion to properly tackle this.
its all by design .
We are loosing our power to influence the world because we have invested to much in imperialism and not enough on the productivity of our people.
It seems like the authors are giving Trump credit for a relatively powerful intellect, and they are suggesting that this intellect is the guiding force for his administration. IMO Trump is much more similar to Chance the Gardener, in the movie Being There. In this case, the randomness of Trump's administration is mistaken as a plan.
Multiple view point. Knowing neurological atypical individuals like Trump he is antidote to race for the serfdom. It appears that way! There was Dorasii book i read in my teens SF by R Heinlein....
Called tactics of mistakes. I really like the title as it implies winning despite mistakes. I think according to Peter Ziehan USA is going to be top despite who ever is the president geopolitically. USA as cultural civilization has still not grown up yet! I think usa will be alright if india hooks up with it otherwise its accepting or fighting thucidides trap.
I rather usa than china as head bully!
There's a reason they say that the lies must be repeated over and over and over and over. The People will likely begin to believe them. I'm not as susceptible to brainwashing/propaganda as some.
I have never heard so much bull . Be antiimperalist!
You need to expand your argument !
@Geir
Characteristic of the "liberal order" is anonymous and spread out economic dictatorship. They all know who butters their bread and even when criticizing, they sound like kids who do not dare to say "no" to their mother. There's just too much to be lost: good life, career, money, social acceptance etc. Final result is legions of spineless, beating around the bush "academics" and "journalists". If they grow a spine and formulate concise and clear criticism they are simply marginalized. Not by decree as in "dictatorships" but by "invisible hand of the market" (hydra of country's owners).
write a blog about it
I think the US has less pull geopolitically now than 50 years ago but 50 years ago, for all intents and purposes America ran the world, or at least tried to. That being said, in terms of cultural cache, the US probably has more influence than it has ever had, largely due to the internet. In the traditional western world at least, everyone who uses the internet will do so via American companies and encounter an Americanised world wide web. Although China are increasing their geopolitical and economic standings, due to the insular nature of the government and heavy censorship of 'dissenting' material, their cultural influence is minimal.
Because of the push of silicon valley, American corporations seem more influential than they ever have been and in that sense the hegemony certainly hasn't ended.
There is only IBM, and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
Your logic only hold, if you ignore the fact that the chinese sphere of influence has at least quadruple the number of humans in it. lol
You show typical US "exceptionalism".
My son was shocked some years back when I told him that there were more phones in New York than all of Africa. Africa needs China. No one else cares.
@@pcuimac And they all speak a very hard language for a non-native to learn. Where's their cultural capital? What language is your comment in?
I love it when Americans mention the corruption of other countries funny as fk.
This is such an interesting discussion, that I shall have to listen to it again... Thank you!
'tis I, Sir Gabriel, Lieutenant of the Mythical Liberal International Order ;)
We might make mistakes but we mean well. LMAO
Completely missing from this discussion is any mention of capitalism or economic interests. As if anyone falls for this "liberal" vs. "illiberal" and "democracy promotion" bs lol
Yeah while broadly this analysis is correct it does leave a lot of important aspects out that would reframe the discussion and better reflect reality. They’re talking exclusively about the neoliberal order and it’s benefits while sweeping aside the negatives, other than to say, effectively, that Francis Fukuyama was wrong and neoliberalism doesn’t necessitate progressive cultural change.
@@invanorm negatives like everyone viscerally hates it!
I think "democracy promotion" is neo-liberal code for, you know, destroying Iraq, etc.
More academic predictions from disassociated university intellectuals. Do their predictions ever come right?
Marks score card is in the black
The Prisoner series and topics is more relevant than ever. Too bad we don't get to have 'The girl who was death' episode.
Haven't you escaped yet?
Robb Smith... The Great Release... has been talking about these same ideas for years now. Very in alignment.
Good interview, amazing comments!
The greatest victories are the ones that come without the adversary knowing your triumph. "The Art of War" reconsidered....
same way ended for everyone else: becoming irrelevant and losing confidence. Soviet Union was exporting revolution in Africa and invading Afghanistan while its roads and bridges were collapsing. They build new nukes while could not provide enough food for its citizens. They trained militias in Angola while the police back home was not properly funded and trained. do we see similarities with US? yes of course.
"Exporting revolution" - ask all of the African regimes how much "support" they got from the USSR. Not much. Now ask yourself a second question: if those African regimes asked for help, how is it that they were exported from Moscow? The FAPLA/MPLA in Angola requested help from the USSR and didn't get much - in fact the Cubans rejected Moscow's position not to interfere and forced Moscow's hand. In any case, the South Africans were the ones who advanced into Angola under the auspices of UNITA, and planned to hit Namibia next - that is, Angola was meant to be a puppet regime for South Africa.
The revolution in Angola, as elsewhere in Africa, was real - and they received limited support from the USSR, hence why the United States did in fact manage to establish some dictators of their own which persist to this day.
This is old, flawed, xenophobic, Cold War thinking.
@@laserprawn ussr was funding revolution across the world fact. facts have no feelings
Secondly, the USSR invaded Afghanistan precisely because there was a revolution - one in which the Taliban assassinated the elected Communist leader of Afghanistan because they opposed urbanization, secularization, and education for women. The Taliban saw the USSR as a modernizing power that wanted to colonize it. The USSR went into Afghanistan to defend the elected government.
The United States on the other hand made it an explicit policy to create a "bear trap" and turn Afghanistan into Vietnam. Far from being about supporting the freedom of the Taliban, they participated in making Afghanistan a warzone for their foreign policy.
Zbigniew Brzezinski was explicit about using Afghanistan to destroy the Soviet Union, and funneled arms through the Pakistani ISI, chiefly stinger missiles which allowed the rebels to attack Soviet helicopters. The result was that the helicopters flew higher and began to "fight back" by destroying entire villages from afar, ala the French "rat hunts" in Algeria.
@@laserprawn The U.S. after they assassinated Sadat, also funnelled arms from Egypt.
@@laserprawn The US also used the Saudis as a proxy to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. After the war ended the US tried to use the same strategy in the Caucasus Region to further disintegrate Russia. It did not work.
25:30 in that though you also have consider comparative power. You just said, even in its decline the US controls around a quarter of the world's economy.
I don't think saying that all actors have agency really does justice to the power dynamics. Or the moral implications of bad behaviour. What the US did to Iraq was real and, at least theoretically, measurable. I feel equating possible and potential actions of weaker actors with real world actions and consequences of the stronger ones is bad arguing. It's not like you can predict their actions. You are allowing them to be framed by the same country that has had troops in Afghanistan for like twenty years now
While I can sort off agree, China is pretty explicit about their agenda and their human rights record is abysmal. That won’t magically change if they increase their reach. In fact it’s likely to get worse as they can get away with more. That doesn’t have any bearing on US atrocities though, which are undeniable and inexcusable and currently a greater threat globally.
That a decline has taken place in the last fifty years it's undeniable. But the heights of power from where USA has been declining were so high that it's taken a long time and it will take a long time more before the second power gets even close to the USA in power.
Agree, though the view from the top of the cliff is wonderful til the sudden slip. The current economic, social and biological crises are straining the U.S. global fiscal system and pushing further American military options as an eventual out while the American people awaken to domestic dystopia. The US $ is still king and I had thought to see it dethroned within my lifespan, at age 52, and now see as likely a lot sooner: IMO Chris Hedges discusses the topic of this podcast much more accurately and presciently than both of these guests (though I'm always in to hear Mark Blyth fascinatingly dissect the new world disorder as well)
@@adyear3168 yes. The military paradigma has changed radically though, and the way the USA make war is so expensive (for the people at large who haven't got any more to give to the military industrial complex) that the military options are getting limited too.
@@cyrneco All those trillions and a lot fewer targets than before occurs to me as well. Pulling out of many treaties especially nuclear is counterproductive. Moving to tactical nuclear weaponry is a real and present and future danger - and we don't have a JFK&RFK to manage such a crisis if skirmishes blow up no pun intended. I've heard it said well that the United States is now a country that cannot afford to stay at peace for a long period of time. Hopefully saner heads will prevail behind the militant rhetoric of both Parties and the mass media. Other nation powers can also provide balance with no need to engage militarily while the U.S. implodes domestically. Wait and watch wins the battle by default. Interesting times.
Can't happen too soon.
Maybe a shift in the center of gravity of World Power? Look at what’s happening in the Indo-Pacific region. Hegemony is always on the agenda when US & allies are still in a “Containment Strategy” regarding Chinese regional expansionism (Taiwan, SK, South China Sea, S-Pacific micro Nations... etc). How will that end up? Not well if you ask me.
Mark: maybe you don't feel this is your place but please set up a podcast about who "we/America" are. Many would like to assume that Trump is the one doing everything, but it takes a machine - it's not one person. So please point out the machine that is driving this systemic failure.
Have you looked up his lectures and interviews on TH-cam? His interview on the Michael Brook Show explains the Neoliberal Revolution and its first crisis - the crash of 2009 - very well. He hasn't really tackled the early 20th century in any detail however. That's unsurprising as Mark came to prominence because of his work on Neoliberalism, and Austerity in particular in the 20th century and early 21st century. Whether he will dip his toe into that arena as his discipline is Political Economy I don't know. I think it would be an interesting departure for him.
I assure you the US Workers are great!
Why do political scientists refer to the governments of the West as "democracies?" By constitution the governments of the west are clearly oligarchies. In America there are 435 congressional reps, 100 senators and 2 presidents. So there are 537 elected federal officials for a population of 330 million people or .00001 of the population govern. This is clearly government by the few. No western state has been a democracy since ancient Athens. The American founders were familiar with the classics. They knew of the constitution of Athens and chose to model America on the constitution of Rome. This is what we got from the two executives on down. To claim that Western oligarchies are democracies is a big lie. When are political scientists going to use the true categories that apply to governments?
Maybe when you specify what those true categories "are", oh enlightened one.
@@matthewwilliam1180 You haven't read Aristotle's Politics? This is basic information.
And why use his terms? And not modern terms like rep-democracies?
@@chrishekman6179 Aristotle's theory is the foundation of Western Political science. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel.
@@matthewwilliam1180 Rule of one person is either Kingship or Tyranny. Rule of a few people is either Aristocracy or Oligarchy. Rule of the people is either Polity or Democracy.
Really deep stuff.
Can we get a follow-up on AIIB, its significance, and the previous Asian Monetary Fund suggested by Japan and how that got shot down?
Mostly facile analysis disconnected from viewing Political Economy as directly linked to Geopolitics in concrete terms and brushes aside the issue of Imperialism by merely pointing to Vulgar Anti-Imperialists as if they're representative of actual analyses of Imperialism. Can't say I expect anything else from Liberalism.
if you are confused .... Our book provides recommendation of how you ought to proceed .....
Another great show...
See the histories of the Byzantine Empire so see how many times it came back over a thousand years. America has a far stronger physical base than 'The City' ever had. So I think you're calling the Curtain too soon. IF the US wants to refirm its Allies in Europe, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Mexico etc as starters the future might turn be very different from your vision.
A nice discussion vis Treatys and agreements.
The coming collapse of the whole system ( US or otherwise ) is about to come to a crumbling collapse and you talk about signing things or not?
I won't scare you - so Revolution's off for now but if the Capitalists (US or not again ) do not go a for a Rooseveltian reflaltion of their economy and other alleged Democracies do the same then they will rue the day that they chose to be not capitalists at all over and above being poorer capitalists for a certain period.
Then again - short termism has been the Hallmark of alleged Capitalists for the last forty Neo - Liberal years.
It's on its way.
By the way the Revolutionaries will not be negotiating or signing anything.
Interview covers an important subject but would be better served by less verbiage and more examples citing institutions, countries and policies
Good grief there is some drivel in this comment section...
Can't stop with the scrolling though. Scrollers anonymous should be a thing at this point.
Sadly, I hope for some learned, and erudite commentary but unfortunately you get the ones who didn't read the title properly, have some pet theory to push, or just want to troll. That's TH-cam for you.
@@BigHenFor I'm here to listen to people who've done their homework. I've no idea how I end up down here! Good luck. ps, out of interest, any drivel in particular?
@@sprobablycancr4457 Drivel like boo Trump doesnt have a doctrine, so boom everything is BS what these guys say... 🤦♂️
Keep scrollin' scrollin' scrollin' scrollin' WHAT
...sorry
31:30 guest does an excellent job breaking down modern US hegemony
Interesting point about distinguishing American power from the American system and the failure to use the Dollar Hegemony to prevent the hollowing out of our R&D and domestic investment has already ended our stability and our role as "safe haven". We are headed towards a "Central Asian kleptocracy".
Overly intellectualised Trump (which put their sneering about apocryphal leftists into sharp relief) and missed out the foreign policy catastrophe that was Dubya, but lots of interesting chat.
What on this earth has lasted forever? And especially what human thing has existed since the emergence of humans and even more specifically what political/economic system has lasted forever. Using the word forever just negates any argument you make. Nothing is forever. Not even this earth.
according to Cooley & Nexon.....
"We live in a period of great uncertainty about the fate of America's global leadership. Many believe that Donald Trump's presidency marks the end of liberal international order-the very system of global institutions, rules, and values that shaped the American international system since the end of World War II. ."... short the pleasure to have read what is considered "the best guide to understanding Foreign policy and Global orders !
Some policies on Global orders were listed in previous "guides " .. many of which still stands... if you have any doubt ..... Secretary H.Kissinger will guarantee all your doubts to fall within reason.
you may not like his accent and that's your prerogative , yet ...you cant get more american than that. Right...
the fate of America's global leadership ... You mean during more "certain period we lived in during Vietnam ? Korea ? IRAN 1953.. iran iraq...and all other certain times of the banana republics ..are this the Liberal international order, Rules you consider great "American Values" that is under pressure ...
Write a book on how to improve the fate of the American People and domestic policy..... No foreign accents and or Kissinger ... that it self should be a motivation to change course ..
I wonder if it harms the average American or will it benefit us. I think the later if it reduces commitments overseas. Unfortunately we could have dark times ahead if the American hegemon decides to reinforce it's primacy with military intervention. We should embrace a multi-polar world.
You should also bring peter zeihan, pepe Escobar, kishore mahbubani, Falun gong people to hear theirs perspective
I'd like to hear where Mark disagrees with someone like Michael Hudson.
@@Bisquick Basically: Mark has hope that people can do anything other than revolt.
All his comments on how to fix it assume: they will let you.
@@antediluvianatheist5262 Yeah this is what I figured too. God I wish he was right but I think history and virtually everything that elites do and permit says otherwise.
Or Vijay Prashad. He would make Mark eat that The Russians are Klingons comment.
FINALLY!
Ross Perot predicted this would happen almost 30 years ago and the alterglobalization movement has been fighting corporate globalization for decades. Took you guys awhile to catch up.
Very, very interesting
I got waaaaay less out of this than I thought I would. Zero analysis of comparable historical examples, zero practical lessons learned towards alternative strategies beside "how can we undo how much America's power has degraded". I got absolutely no sens of any "approach to understanding the rise and decline of hegemonic orders"... just a run down of some stuff that has happened over the last three decades.-> WHY IS IT HAPPENING???
Daniel Schmidt have you watched any Peter Zeihen? He has very compelling analysis of what is going on.
As the title is "How US Hegemony Ends" instead of Why, you might have misread the title, and are now stomping your little feet in frustration. Doh!
BigHenFor unfortunately, the talk neither explored how or why. Rather it was just little lefty academic foot stomping about how orange man bad and brainless lamenting about the way things were back in ‘the good old days’, before orange Superman destroyed everthing.
Most people already know why it's happening I think. It's because US politics is such a mess.
And you assumed people are interested in fixing it, as long as US politics (influence of rich/powerful through campaign funding, etc.) doesn't get fixed nothing will get fixed. So their is nothing much to do.
Possibly there is no mechanical formula, it works differently every time hegemonic powers decline, depending on the times.
Are we serious now? US first, and then the others followed, into the outsourcing of production, which is the main cause of outsourcing the technologies and eventually
the creation of skilled workmanship
abroad in countries other than those of the ideas, universities and production plans had been conceived.
And all that knowing from the beginning that the target was the accumulated wealth of Western societies which was about to be ended some day.
So it's more like the self fullfiling prophecy we are talking about..
Take a shot every time one of the authors ends a sentence with "right?".
You can't half tell who steers the direction of this show, no country has done more to bring down the US than Israel, Russia is this little cover story whilst they do it.
This seemed vapid :(
Russia asked to join NATO and the EU and both denied them, so we can’t blame them for not trying to become a part of the bigger system.
Kicking around Central American States? Are Bolivia and Brazil Central American? Okay...
Curious omitting the main challenge to the US: Asia is now the main wealth creator?
The human family needs an international order under law to provide for the needs of people. A brotherhood of man with a supra-national patriotism. Dreams are cheap, the dis-utopia is worse. If we will survive, we must united.
It's so hard to listen to people who keep saying 'right'? 'right'?...'right'?
Ah, yes, Obumma, the one-man Weimar Republic. Less capricious than Trump but no less depraved.
i should stop watching things confirming what i know and understand... i love people having the same idears.
In the 70s we Canadians all wanted to move to California, now I wish I never set foot in that shit hole country ever again, religiosity, imperialism, ego-centrism, ignorance, crony capitalism, democracy at the point of a gun, etc... A country that spends more on it's military than the rest of the world scares everyone, aggression is not how you make friends.
Mark, I truly wish you'd invite Peter Zeihan on to discuss his counterpoint to the point of view presented by the authors here. America one's the Oceans; the world's currency; about to own the Premier World Trade agreements. America can let China die on the vine...without a war. America may well destroy itself, but no other country will.
China makes all the stuff you buy in Walmart. how is China dependent on US not the other way around?
roc China by no means owns the monopoly on low-cost manufacturing. Vietnam, Thailand etc. could all pick up the slack if China was excluded from global trade. Conversely, China is fully-dependent on foreign naval powers to provide security on the high seas so that it can import raw materials and export its goods to international markets; the US Navy is the only one powerful enough to do that for all the world's oceans.
@@matthewwilliam1180 You can't exclude only China, and keep the rest. We slap tariffs on China, head over to Vietnam with our shopping cart and SURPRISE THEY'RE RIGHT NEXT DOOR MORON YOU EVER LOOKED AT A MAP??? You'll just be buying the same Chinese crap with a Vietnamese markup, and Vietnam is pleased as piss because that's the joy of arbitrage, ZERO capital investment required.
Daniel Schmidt I'm sorry, who said anything about tariffs? If America wants to sink China it can just take its Navy and go home. Without the freedom of navigation guaranteed by the US, the world's shipments of raw resources are open to anyone who wants to take them. And since I can, in fact, read a map, I can tell you that Vietnam, Thailand etc. are closer to the supply of these resources than China is. Why settle for a markup when they can just have the whole thing?
Apologies for my BIG, FAT TYPO: America 'OWNS' the Oceans (our Navy).
There are some parallels to Morris Berman.
BRING THE ACTUAL FACTS FROM WAR ZONE AND I SAW A VEDIO THAT A MAN FROM ESCAPING FROM THE RECENT BOMB NEARBY POLAND BORDER WHO SAYS. MORE-THAN 100 USA troops were killed
Is this true??
Did you get any casualties report regarding this??
However
Keep rocking
4:15 MARK I'M TOO SMALL BRAIN TO KNOW WHO THUCYDIDES IS. EXCEPT HOW TO SPELL HIS NAME. AND THAT HE WAS FROM ATHENS. I THINK.
They are referring to Graham Allison's book "Destined For War - Can America And China Escape The Thucydides Trap" which is one empire having another coming up behind, mostly leading to war.
once you started on russia russia russia i left
I think Mark is not seeing the dollar as what it is. The dollar itself has no value. It's a fiat currency backed by nothing. The only reason the dollar is being used worldwide is, because everyone has access to it. But that isn't a natural law. If you have crazy US governments it is absolutely conceivable, that large parts of the global economy could be cut off from access to the dollar. If that happens they will still need resources and trade with their neighbors. So they'd just use something else. Because they really don't need the dollar for that.
(34:21-34:39) Dollar hegemony
These guys need to listen to some Charles Eisenstein.
22:00 russia is too big to be regional power .
the entire argument of this book is a fallacy. it's not america vs china and/or russia. the establishment which runs america (the military industrial complex, corporations and banks) has no country allegiance. therefore, it's the establishment running america in a competitive partnership with china and/or russia (or leveraging this competitive dynamic when convenient e.g. cold war) to plunder all the resources of america. when will the american public realize that the enemy of the establishment running america is not china and/or russia, it is the american public. they are the marks in this long con - which has been running for the past 50 years under the guise of a neoliberal economic system aka neofeudalism
Russia China Iran Libia irack and Venezuela all wish to trade in oil in another currency than the USD, Do you need to know more???
Pretty sure we are already a kleptocracy
I'll take "Putin's Multi-ladder-alism" for $2000, Alex.
Trump 2020
Alternative title. 'How China will inevitably regain global hegemony'
LOL as if. They can barely keep from starving. The EU rules the world.
@ i don't know about that. Maybe 20 years ago you would be right.
@ I wish but countries in EU can't get their shit together and are still playing stupid games between them.
@ The EU has a major problem with its common currency, the Euro. Many EU countries must borrow in that "foreign" currency and thus come under the thumb of bond vigilantes, who invariably impose damaging austerity. It's inefficient to have one central bank serving multiple national governments. I'm not sure what they were thinking when they set the whole thing up.
@ The EU is getting squeezed from both sides. It is a weakling compared to the US and China.
Did you name this podcast with an intentional sense of irony? As a critic of NeoLiberalism and NeoConservatism I would assume that you're no fan of Cecil Rhodes and his nefarious machinations to initiate the drive toward global government by centralized finance. What gives? (If you have not read MacGregor and Docherty's book, I trust you will find it enriching and eye opening. The victors write the history, indeed.)
Different Rhodes, The William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at Brown University was established in 2007 with the generous support of William R. Rhodes. That is where Mark works.
@@varsityathlete9927 Ah! An important distinction. Thanks for the clarification, j.
Perhaps its unfair, but upon review of William's Board Appointments, I don't know if it's significant enough of an improvement. Glad to know the Center has the wisdom to promote Mark's message, but with friends like the CFR it's hard not to ascribe some likelihood to the conjecture that message control animates their selection and endorsement of opposition voices. Of course, if anyone, no matter what their loyalties, is willing to institute a replacement for the yolk of Fiat Debt without invoking total surveillance under a single currency and centralized global management, I'll remain open.
On that note, (hey Mark!) wouldn't a multiplicity of non-transferable currencies matched to geographic watersheds and associated representative governments be a nice idea? After all, economic regions are incapable of measuring their relative value to other economic regions without currency markets to determine the differences. Under single currency regimes, they can't distinguish equitable trading partners from rapacious ones. Without heterogeneous measures of value that are fixedly specific to place, any and all value can be siphoned from any one locale into any single entity's coffers, clearly an unethical and destructive system. Jane Jacobs was clearly on the money with her ideas about this role of currencies. It'd be a hell of an improvement for Global Trumpism if nationalist sentiment were transformed constructively from xenophobic social differences into mere pride of place with a focus on regional economic improvement and representative efficacy. Competition needn't be a winner-take-all zero-sum game, but having one currency necessarily makes it so.
Esoteric crappy.
globalism conservatism bad ... globalism liberalism good ... red scare anyone????
RIP americuh