Imperial Blowback...

John O’Kane

Chalmers Johnson’s notion of “blowback” is crucial for understanding the crisis in Ukraine. In his 1999 book of the same name, he argued that the US’s aggressive policies abroad were provoking negative reactions from many of the governments and populations subjected to our imperial overreach, the symptom of all empires in their declining phase when they’ve tried to extend their zones of influence.

This was nearly a quarter century ago, before Russia had even partially recovered from the “shock therapy” delivered in the wake of the Soviet collapse by Wall Street which took advantage of the sudden forced sell-off of its once public-held assets at fire sale prices. This revolution returned massive wealth to a new regime of colonizers, keeping Russia in a dependent state like a third world country, victimized by authorities like the IMF which demand low wages for workers, adherence to “free” market principles, and the shrinkage of the public sector as price for financial support. It also contributed to the creation of oligopolies, the inevitable result of a low wage economy linked to radically decreased public regulation as we’ve seen develop here in the US and other western nations, the formula for the continuing spike of inequality. And these conditions, echoes of the Tsarist times, enabled the minting of Russia’s first wave of Oligarchs.

Many in Russia during those years were not very happy about these quick and extreme changes. They lived through the horror of an eventually failed revolution but wanted to preserve some of its positives, like the safety net, still considered superior to that in many western countries, and the collective check on private power. This is why the Communist Party remained strong well into the current century, garnering significant electoral votes, even though a return to a Communist system was not in the cards.

We’re surely witnessing now the blowback from these policies, from the failure to reconstruct the post-Cold War era in a humane fashion. We could have welcomed Russia into the western capitalist order by capitalizing this suddenly capital-starved country, giving it the stake that would’ve helped it avoid the trauma it unfortunately had to endure.

Our attitude toward Russia is clarified in Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. It celebrated our victory in the Cold War but went well beyond this to fully discredit socialist experiments, piling on the negatives to drive home the point that our system was superior. The ideological war between east and west had been resolved without a shot fired and in our favor. We were now beyond ideology, and we believed we had the license to dictate our model of progress to other nations, remake the world in our image. For the first time since we inherited the global empire in 1945, we had no major competitor. But despite the lack of a hot or cold enemy, we increased our presence around the globe. The number of military bases spiked through the 1990s, helping to protect our investments. We stepped on a lot of toes in this decade, according to Johnson, cultivating the conditions for revenge that he believed contributed to 9/11.

And many more subsequently as we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, ultimately killing astronomically more than died at this tragic event, overkilling to drive home the point that we had the power to police the globe, remake it in our image. But something happened in this long march from 1991 to the recent embarrassing exit from Afghanistan. We encountered new enemies that we couldn’t defeat. We were unable to dictate as we’d imagined we could at that pinnacle of megalomanic glory in 1991. We remained in these countries, stewing in our failure to deliver the punch, sending mixed and false messages to justify our presence to the world. We had misread the status of our overextended empire. The world had evolved. There were new kinds of enemies surfacing, motivated by causes we couldn’t understand, and new unexpected alliances. They were equipped with a warring temperament that refused to be dominated, and new forms of warfare that defied our tried and tested ingenuity. Our empire was becoming unsustainable.

Mr. Putin has surely went to school on these failures, capitalizing on the weakness of our overextended empire, our fitful efforts to motor regime changes, and especially on our crippled exit from Afghanistan. And perhaps he’s seized the moment to realize his vision of an ascendant Eurasian empire. Years and years of perceived mistreatment by the west certainly compounded his motivation, especially the demonizing of Russia and the chorus of allegations about influencing elections in this country ranged around the larger issue of---mostly---the Democrats’ “Russiagate.” Even reputable independent journalists jumped on this elections-bandwagon until a Special Prosecutor at least pared those claims back, forcing some to recant. The constant refrain of “dictator”---however much deserved---has substituted for any reasonable discussion about Mr. Putin’s position in relation to this historic country. It’s astounding how many in this country still call Russians, Communists!

We heralded Mr. Putin in the 1990s as the leader who was taking Russia in the right direction after the chaos of the Yeltsin years, but like so many of our former allies---Osama Bin Laden, Ho Chi Minh, to mention a few---he soon flipped to enemy status. Tragically, not enough consideration has been given to the conditions which created him. Of course, none of this mistreatment excuses the atrocity Mr. Putin has delivered to the world.

But it’s revealing that the corporate media coverage since the bombs dropped has become even less open to the larger picture, offering mostly a cursory glimpse of the issues that preceded the conflict. At times it approximates the spectacle of a grade-B western. The complexities of Russia’s relationship to Ukraine, of the US’s policies toward Russia since the 1991 dismantling of the Soviet Union, of NATO’s creep eastward since this moment, especially its incursion into Russian territory in the late 1990s, of Ukraine’s treatment of the Russian-speaking people in its eastern sector after the 2014 coup engineered by the Obama administration, all once discussion points for a potential diplomatic solution, have been mostly erased. The crisis is only a simple story. A larger-than-life dictator villain, obsessed with imperial grandeur, invaded a sovereign country, and the forces of good are committed to stopping him. Bad is bad, good is good. History is bunk. You’re either on the bus or off it.

It's of course easy for many to suppress the issues that were allegedly on the negotiating table to deliver a diplomatic solution given Putin’s excesses since the invasion. But some of these were credible. Mr. Putin demanded from the start that Ukraine should maintain its neutrality through a constitutional guarantee; refuse to join the EU or NATO; acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory; and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states. He recently agreed to meet with Zelensky and discuss these issues if there is an immediate ceasefire. If these issues are even mentioned now in the corporate press, they’re passed over and dismissed as Russian propaganda. If individuals bring them up, they’re accused of being unpatriotic, a right-wing sympathizer, or even a Trumper.

Facing these issues now and attempting to negotiate a compromise could stave off disastrous consequences, claimed Yanis Varoufakis in a recent interview (DemocracyNow, 3/24). The longer the conflict continues the more hostile the rhetoric has become. There are even increasing calls for a no-fly zone. If that happens, we could be facing Armageddon. Instead of forcing the diplomatic route, the Biden administration has steadily increased our involvement, sending more weapons and aid and soldiers in what it claims are defensive moves. But this will only inflame the situation and Mr. Putin, and likely prolong the war, making it more difficult to forge a compromise and prevent more atrocities.

What’s at the root of this refusal? It’s surely “American Exceptionalism” again, our inability to accept that we can be wrong. Only other countries should be blamed. The slants of the corporate media coverage now are thoroughly steeped in “American Exceptionalism.” We are morally outraged about Russia’s Oligarchs, but our Oligarchs have been given a pass for generations. Russia is targeting civilians and committing war crimes, but the astounding number of civilians killed---in the millions---in our invasions were mostly erased from public consciousness. In fact, we refused to participate in the International Criminal Court. Where was this kind of media coverage then? Only Russia has imperial fantasies. We step into situations for defensive, humanistic reasons to restore order all over the globe.

This helps explain why we’re suppressing the role of NATO in this whole crisis. We’re ever ready to pump up its resources and encourage our “allies” to follow suit but can’t face the fact that a military alliance that was the creature of the Cold War with the Soviet Union wasn’t dismantled when this society was dissolved, as the Reagan administration authorities at the time said it would be after the reconstruction, effectively positioning Russia as the perpetual enemy. NATO and the US have been engaged in a silent war of aggression against Russia for over 30 years.

This refusal to negotiate must reflect the desire to prolong the war itself since the US and its NATO allies have the most to gain, according to the US Peace Council. It will help to further unify NATO under US domination, reduce Russian economic competition in the European energy market, justify increasing the US defense budget, and facilitate the sale of war material to NATO vassals (“Peace Council Statement on Russia’s Military Intervention in Ukraine,” Portside, 3/26/2022).

The Biden administration must be secretly elated by this misadventure since now it will have no need to even try and resuscitate its flagging domestic agenda. Keep the populace fixated on external affairs, one of the seminal lessons of George Orwell’s 1984.

It should be mentioned that for some time before the hostilities commenced Europe was already turning toward Russia, China, and other non-western sources for its energy needs since they were more economical (Michael Hudson, “America’s Real Adversaries are Its European and Other Allies,” CounterPunch, 2/11/2022). This shift has threatened to damage our already dismal export-import imbalance. So, it’s revealing that President Biden just recently announced that the US will work with the EU and “international partners” to ramp up liquefied natural gas shipments to Europe to help the continent wean itself off Russian energy! It will “supply an additional 15 billion cubic meters of LNG to Europe this year” (Gloria Gonzalez, “US, EU Pledge to Seek New Natural Gas Supplies to Displace Russia,” Politico, 3/25/2022).

And then there’s the oil issue, the war giving this American oligopoly the power to raise prices, justified to a degree because of the supply shortages but not for the price-gouging at the consumer pump. Polls show over 80% of Americans believe the oil companies are engaging in profiteering, a fact which has even gotten their owned Congress to take note. It’s also ironic that these same companies have been colluding with Russia’s state-owned energy companies since 2014, generating billions of dollars in profits for Mr. Putin’s war chest, and helping to prolong the war (Jessica Corbett, “How Big Oil Funded Putin’s War Chest,” Common Dreams, 3/25/22).

And finally, the expenditures on defense have spiked here and in Europe due to the war. Mr. Biden’s Pentagon budget has increased to well over 800 billion dollars. Contractors are cuing up for the cash. Budgets don’t go down!

The beneficiaries of this catastrophe are breeding fast, interests who will wield considerable pressure to stay on the gravy train, keep the hostilities going. This power bloc will also likely pressure the Biden administration to veto any proposed peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine should one hopefully present itself soon.

Will these entrenched interests dictate the course of events in Ukraine, help to prop up an empire reeling from years of misadventures and decline, or will the anti-war forces step up and counter this pressure, force the current stewards of the empire to face up to the legacy of addictive domination and embrace the evolving multi-polar world, or possibly the multi-civilizational one that Samuel Huntington---in his 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations---posed against the Fukuyama script?