India not willing to play by the rules: US lawmakers

[t_co]

Very interesting observation along with the fact that all major oil trade and currency are tied to the dollar
All major US trading partners with USA have to buy US debt so many factors have US remain a hyperpower
If anything happens to US atleast a dozen other countries will go down as well.

Aye, and there's the rub: after Obama came in, the core grand strategy of America shifted to becoming the world's 'indispensable nation'. The Obama team made this shift because neither Bush's unilateralism nor Clinton's unmitigated neo-liberalism could produce reliable gains for the major stakeholders of US politics (Wall Street, the Pentagon, megacorporations, etc.) There are other drivers in that decision as well (the largest of which was the increasing multipolarity of global geopolitics, but that's outside the scope of this analysis.)

In order to be indispensable, the US has to have something that everyone in the world needs. That used to be access to the US market, but with the advent of the WTO, market access across the world has "multilateralized" to the extant that it is no longer an indispensable US advantage.

Other advantages the US has are smaller, relatively speaking - but one looms large, and that's the US advantage in military capability.

So the US strategy hinges on driving as many countries or regions as possible to desire US security aid - and the simplest way to do that is to ratchet up tensions between them.

Ergo, you have the Asia Pivot; you have the US dithering between India (Kerry's trip) and Pakistan (the US would never totally kick Pakistan to the curb, but would be happy to see China foot the hospital bill for keeping Pakistan alive).

You have the Fed openly working with the ECB to "stabilize" the Euro, while ensuring that their help only works if policies that are unpopular in EU debtor nations (read: Greece) get enacted; you have the US quietly ramping up Radio Free Europe's budget in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, to tilt them against the EU core; you have the US selling a ballistic missile shield to Poland and Sweden to defend against Iran when any fifth-grade geography student would tell you the shield is aimed at Russia.

And of course, in Syria, you have the US playing a double game of trying to bleed both the Sunni and Shiite extremist communities dry - Obama's main goal seems to be inciting Hezbollah and Al Qaeda into fighting each other to the death, which is great strategy from the US side (even if a bit hypocritical coming from the 2009 Peace Prize laureate). And in the larger scheme of the Middle East, the US has adeptly pitted Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and Iran into a four-way geopolitical contest that will keep their focus on each other for the next twenty years.

The net impact of this is that it keeps the US free to roam around the world and get favorable "trades" on specific things it wants, in return for offering the support of the US military as a high-tech mercenary army.

The balancing act is that the US can't make any trade where support from the US military/soft power complex enables its proxies to pursue regional hegemony independent of Washington's support. This is why you see Washington remaining neutral on Tokyo's charm offensive vis a vis China - if Japan has India, Vietnam, Australia, and South Korea backing it, why would it need the US anymore? Likewise, this is why the US wants to keep Israel from permanently defanging Iran's nuclear program - Iran's nuclear program keeps Israel (and more importantly, Saudi Arabia) dependent on America.

This is why the US is so concerned about China's military program - not because it fears China getting regional dominance over East Asia, but because it fears China will be able to compete on offering the security "product"; this is why the US is so keen on demonizing China's human rights record - America will no longer be indispensable if there is another global actor capable of providing hard and soft power.

The important thing to recognize is that this does not make the US anyone's enemy; nor does it make America evil or racist - it is simply another nation (and another President) playing the cards it has been dealt. This is the game everyone plays; America's actions should not inspire hatred, but a desire to get better at playing one's own game.

 

[TrueSpirit]

Aye, and there's the rub: after Obama came in, the core grand strategy of America shifted to becoming the world's 'indispensable nation'. The Obama team made this shift because neither Bush's unilateralism nor Clinton's unmitigated neo-liberalism could produce reliable gains for the major stakeholders of US politics (Wall Street, the Pentagon, megacorporations, etc.) There are other drivers in that decision as well (the largest of which was the increasing multipolarity of global geopolitics, but that's outside the scope of this analysis.)

In order to be indispensable, the US has to have something that everyone in the world needs. That used to be access to the US market, but with the advent of the WTO, market access across the world has "multilateralized" to the extant that it is no longer an indispensable US advantage.

Other advantages the US has are smaller, relatively speaking - but one looms large, and that's the US advantage in military capability.

So the US strategy hinges on driving as many countries or regions as possible to desire US security aid - and the simplest way to do that is to ratchet up tensions between them.

Ergo, you have the Asia Pivot; you have the US dithering between India (Kerry's trip) and Pakistan (the US would never totally kick Pakistan to the curb, but would be happy to see China foot the hospital bill for keeping Pakistan alive).

You have the Fed openly working with the ECB to "stabilize" the Euro, while ensuring that their help only works if policies that are unpopular in EU debtor nations (read: Greece) get enacted; you have the US quietly ramping up Radio Free Europe's budget in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, to tilt them against the EU core; you have the US selling a ballistic missile shield to Poland and Sweden to defend against Iran when any fifth-grade geography student would tell you the shield is aimed at Russia.

And of course, in Syria, you have the US playing a double game of trying to bleed both the Sunni and Shiite extremist communities dry - Obama's main goal seems to be inciting Hezbollah and Al Qaeda into fighting each other to the death, which is great strategy from the US side (even if a bit hypocritical coming from the 2009 Peace Prize laureate). And in the larger scheme of the Middle East, the US has adeptly pitted Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and Iran into a four-way geopolitical contest that will keep their focus on each other for the next twenty years.

The net impact of this is that it keeps the US free to roam around the world and get favorable "trades" on specific things it wants, in return for offering the support of the US military as a high-tech mercenary army.

The balancing act is that the US can't make any trade where support from the US military/soft power complex enables its proxies to pursue regional hegemony independent of Washington's support. This is why you see Washington remaining neutral on Tokyo's charm offensive vis a vis China - if Japan has India, Vietnam, Australia, and South Korea backing it, why would it need the US anymore? Likewise, this is why the US wants to keep Israel from permanently defanging Iran's nuclear program - Iran's nuclear program keeps Israel (and more importantly, Saudi Arabia) dependent on America.

This is why the US is so concerned about China's military program - not because it fears China getting regional dominance over East Asia, but because it fears China will be able to compete on offering the security "product"; this is why the US is so keen on demonizing China's human rights record - America will no longer be indispensable if there is another global actor capable of providing hard and soft power.

The important thing to recognize is that this does not make the US anyone's enemy; nor does it make America evil or racist - it is simply another nation (and another President) playing the cards it has been dealt. This is the game everyone plays; America's actions should not inspire hatred, but a desire to get better at playing one's own game.

Good analysis @t_co

However, it has always been that way. The power-game has some core rules that never change. Here's an excerpt of one of my old posts, which harps on similar tunes..

US would always need Pak against India. Not because it has any enmity with us, but as a part of its foreign policy that mandates having an effective lever against all world powers. & Neighbors fit this role (of lever) very well in most cases, especially when neighbors are antagonists & also paranoids (like in case of Pak).

Two things to be understood here.

Notwithstanding all of its shortcomings, US foreign policy is anything but "incoherent". Second, no matter what the US foreign policy pronouncements tend to make us believe, we need to understand one thing for sure: "With-us-or-Against-us" is not the maxim that US follows.

So, categorization of nations as "friends" & "foes" is naive, over-simplistic & not something that their policies subscribe too.

One cornerstone of their foreign policy is (like every single nation-state) is protection of American interests "globally" by "maintaining the American pre-eminence in this 21st century" & ensuring "energy security". Now, to achieve this, they apply all means at their disposal & one of that maintaining strategic balance among different powers in the world.

They maintain this strategic balance by implementing a simple hedging strategy against all powers. In simple words, what they do is:

1) Hedge China against Russia (Russia is a status-quo-ist power w.r.t. China but China is a revisionist power w.r.t. Russia & US)

2) Hedge Japan + India against China (India + Japan are status-quo-ist powers w.r.t. US & Russia but revisionist power w.r.t. China)

3) Hedge Pakistan against India (Now, Pak is status-quo-ist powers w.r.t. US & China but revisionist power w.r.t. India)

4) Hedge Afghanistan against Pakistan (Now, Afghanistan is status-quo-ist powers w.r.t. India & China but revisionist power w.r.t. Pakistan)

5) Hedge Taliban against Afghanistan (Now, Taliban is a revisionist power w.r.t. Pakistan, India & China but status-quo-ist against US, irrespective of their ongoing hostilities in Af-Pak)