Why The West Is Losing Both Of Its Wars, Against Both Russia And China

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Written by Eric Zuesse

The deluded, stupid, and/or lying, President of the United States, said, of the Ukraine war, on July 13th, that “Putin has already lost the war. … There is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine. He’s already lost that war.” As-if wishing it so will make it so.

On July 20th, linking to news-articles in the Financial Times and in the Center for New American Security (CNAS), Russia’s RT News headlined “West not prepared for conflict with China”, meaning that “The West” (meaning America’s Government) would lose any war against China unless it becomes a nuclear war (which would destroy both countries if not the entire world).

On July 19th, Politico headlined “Allies’ ‘main effort’ for Ukraine shifting from donating weapons to fixing them”, and reported that because the manufacturing-capability to produce weapons for Ukraine can’t keep up with the destruction of those weapons by Russia’s weapons, The West’s strategy now to defeat Russia relies mainly on repairing whatever weapons it can, and that since the same Western industrial base that produces The West’s weapons relies upon the parts-manufacturing that’s needed to repair the weapons, Ukraine’s army is increasingly being left relying upon their troops and less upon NATO’s weapons, in order to carry out the war on behalf of The West  — which will discontinue its support of Ukraine unless Ukraine defeats Russia — and so Ukraine must fight on, in an increasingly precarious position, in which its troop-casualties will become even higher than before.

Why is The West losing both of its main wars? Ever since 1945, it has not won a single war. The problem, here, goes far deeper than merely Ukraine — or even Ukraine plus Taiwan — to reach a basic and systemic problem throughout The West: its corruption at the very tops of its Governments.

The last time when The West won a war was America’s Operation Desert Storm during 17 January to 28 February 1991, against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. But that wasn’t a “war”: it was a mere battle, which went on for 42 days.

So: the last time when The West (minus Hitler’s Germany) won a war was in 1945 when Germany and Japan were defeated in WW II.

What happened afterward which has caused the U.S. Government to have perpetrated 297 invasions after WW II and yet won no war during these 78 years as-of 2023? The U.S. Congressional Research Service’s list of U.S. invasions (including increases in existing invasions) lists and briefly describes 297 such invasions after WW II (i.e., during 1945-2022, a 77-year period), and is titled “Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2022”. That 297 U.S. invasions in the past 77 years is more than all of the instances put together there during 1798-1945 — which was twice as long a period, 147-years. And none of those 297 invasions after 1944 was defensive. 244 of the 297 occurred after the Soviet Union ended in 1991 and prior to Russia’s invading Ukraine in 2022. 175 of them were between the first day of the 21st Century and the day (24 February 2022) when Russia invaded Ukraine. During that entire time (and even going all the way back to the end of WW II in 1945) there was no U.S. declaration of war and therefore no Constitutional legality for the invasion — not for any of America’s post-WW-II invasions. All of the 297 were unConstitutional (without an official congressional declaration of war). Most of them were purely aggressions (some in order to help a foreign tyrant suppress his own population). After the Soviet Union ended in 1991, the U.S. regime just went wild, internationally, and stepped-up the frequency of its invasions. America’s Founders had insisted that there be no “standing army” in this nation. Until Truman established the ‘Defense’ Department and CIA in 1947, there wasn’t any. That change, by him, created America’s military-industrial complex, which now controls the country, on behalf of U.S. billionaires — the fewer-than-a-thousand people who control the nation’s armaments-manufacturers. But, really all U.S. Presidents since 25 July 1945 have been neocons (except JFK just before he was assassinated), though some worse than others. The worst of all (the worst of a bad string) are Truman, Eisenhower, both Bushes, Obama, and Biden. To call this country a democracy is a bad joke. It’s a kleptocracy. The U.S. ‘Defense’ Department is the only one of the 15 U.S. federal Departments that is so corrupt that it cannot even become audited.

The U.S. now has 900 military bases in foreign countries around the world, in addition to the 749 U.S. domestic military bases. The U.S. now is spending approximately half of the entire world’s military costs. The exact figures for America’s military are: $1.447.7 trillion authorized for this year, and $1.510.3 trillion requested for next year. For the current year, the top recognized honest authority on U.S. military spending, Winslow T. Wheeler, uses the reported authorized U.S. Defense Department (DOD) spending of $848.8 billion, but in the latest U.S. DOD statement on that, dated 14 March 2023, the “Total” for “FY 2023 Enacted” (shown on page 9) is actually “851.8” or 3 billion dollars more. It has changed many times during the past few months, but whatever it will be, will be cited by SIPRI and the other billionaire-funded think tanks on that, as including all of U.S. military spending, which it certainly does not. “All” of it would be at least $1.447.7 trillion. Those think tanks cooperate with the U.S. Government in order to fool the global public to think that America’s military expenditure is less than 40% of the world’s, when it is actually more than 50% of the world’s. Currently, the U.S. Government spends around 53% of all of its congressionally and Presidentially authorized (or “discretionary”) annual spending on its military, and only 47% on all other purposes combined. And, currently, the U.S. Government also spends around half of all of the world’s military expenditures. Approximately 26% of America’s approximately $1.5T annual ‘defense’ (aggression) expenditures go to pay its armaments manufacturers.

What is at the bottom of all of this? Massive, world-beating, corruption, at the very top of the the U.S. Government, and enforced upon all of its foreign ‘allies’ or colonies (vassal regimes) including all of their mainstream ‘news’-media (after all, these are ‘democracies’), so that the money-funnel from the masses to the classes will be able to keep on working as it has been doing ever since 1945.

That’s the only possible explanation for it, which is consistent with all of the data. The data are simply its result.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• Eric Zuesse: The Beneficiaries of U.S. Imperialism
• Eric Zuesse: U.S. Empire Will Either Lose Ukraine To Russia, Or Fail To Win Taiwan From China — Or Both
• Eric Zuesse: What Ended Democracy In U.S.-And-Allied Countries