Daily Times

The United States (US) has been fast losing the American century since 1945 despite still dominating the world. This is the central theme of Noam Chomsky’s book, Who Rules the World? published by Penguin Random House in 2016. Chomsky is an author of numerous best-selling books, a professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a known critic of the foreign policy of the US. This opinion piece discusses certain themes of Chomsky’s book.

On page 58, Chomsky mentions the pinnacle of the US success: “The United States had long been by far the richest country in the world. The [Second World] war ended the Great Depression, and American industrial capacity almost quadrupled, while rivals were decimated. At war’s end the United States had half the world’s wealth and unmatched security.” This paragraph gives four messages. First, if there had been no Second World War, the Great Depression (1929-1939) afflicting the US would have continued denying the US all the wealth and prosperity that it amassed. Secondly, the much-acclaimed hegemony of the US was ephemeral, as it for just six years (1939 to 1945). Thirdly, the US still craves for the revival of the glory of wealth and security it enjoyed in 1945. Fourthly, the rise of the US was both meteoric and incidental.

On page 59, Chomsky writes: “There was a period of euphoria after the collapse of the superpower enemy, replete with excited tales about ‘the end of history’ and awed acclaim for President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy, which had entered a ‘noble phase’ with a ‘saintly glow,’ as for the first time in history a nation would be guided by ‘altruism’ and dedicated to ‘principles and values.’ Nothing now stood in the way of an ‘idealistic New World bent of ending inhumanity’, which could at last carry forward, unhindered, the emerging international norm of humanitarian intervention.”

Then from page 69 to 83, Chomsky gauges different reasons for the US decline except two reasons. First, the US cannot win a war if it does not resort to mass killings of innocent civilians, as the US won the Second World War by killing innocent civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Secondly, the US cannot win a cold war if a third party is not ready to do its bidding, as the US emerged successful out of the Cold war in 1991 only when Afghans laid down their lives for one decade (1979-1989) to defeat the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, these two reasons or events favouring the US militate against its own legitimacy as the sole superpower of the world. In his book, Chomsky has failed to gauge that the crisis of legitimacy is the main reason for the US decline. The legitimacy is questioned not only by those who were losers such as Japanese or Russians, or who suffered for being the third party such as Afghans, but also by those who were bystanders such as the Chinese. This is why perhaps many in the rest of the world do not believe in the US altruism, principles and values, and instead look askance at the US version of a humanitarian intervention. And that is why hegemony of the US is being challenged in one realm or the other.

On page 229, Chomsky writes: “The Clinton doctrine [February 1999] affirmed that the United States is entitled to resort to the ‘unilateral use of military power’ even to ensure ‘uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources,’ let alone alleged ‘security’ or ‘humanitarian’ concerns.” This paragraph lays emphasis on unilateral military action for a humanitarian intervention, but practically, the US has preferred to work in a coalition. Supposedly, the US has learnt a lesson from the demise of the former Soviet Union: never go into the war alone. That is, make coalitions to let the allies share the stakes to help brave the ravages of the war, such as the ongoing war on terror that has engulfed several countries through suicide bombings after they allied with the US.

On page 250, Chomsky writes: “The next target of sledgehammer was Iraq. The US-UK invasion, utterly without credible pretext, is the major crime of the 21st century. The invasion [in 2003] led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people in a country where the civilian society had already been devastated by American and British sanctions [in 1990] that were regarded as ‘genocidal’ by the two distinguished international diplomats who administered them, and resigned in protest for this reason.” This paragraph mentions the two Gulf wars.

It is known that in August 1990 Iraq attacked Kuwait under the main ruse of declaring Kuwait its historical part; however, it is not known why exactly the US and the UK reacted so brutally against Iraq in 1991 by even destroying its retreating army to create the highway of death — officially known as Highway 80 between Kuwait city and Basra, Iraq — and by continuing with sanctions against Iraq, interdicting even chlorine (used for water purification), leading to the death of more than 500,000 Iraqis, mainly children owing to diarrhea and gastroenteritis by the end of 1995. One explanation could be that by attacking Kuwait in 1990, Iraq invited the invocation of the Eisenhower Doctrine announced in January 1957 in the wake of the Suez Canal crisis of 1956 to protect the territorial integrity of a Middle Eastern country, and the Carter Doctrine announced in January 1980 to use the military to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf threatened by the impending influence of the former Soviet Union in the Middle East.

Interestingly, on page 245, Chomsky writes: “China is constructing a modernised version of the old silk roads, with the intent not only of integrating the region under Chinese influence, but also of reaching Europe and the Middle Eastern oil-producing regions…Gwadar will be part of China’s ‘string of pearls’, bases being constructed in the Indian Ocean for commercial purposes but potentially also for military use, with the expectation that China might someday be able to project power as far as the Persian Gulf for the first time in the modern era.” This paragraph shows that the US again perceives a challenge to its influence in the Middle East, this time coming from China. Interestingly, the dwindling American century and the climbing Chinese century are fast approaching each other.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com