Why There Is Unrest under US Rule

At present the COVID-19 pandemic is still very serious, the global economy continues to fall into a depression, and more and more elements of uncertainty continue to pop up in the international scene. Countries around the world should take the time to strengthen both cooperation and coordination to address the serious challenges the current pandemic has posed in a number of areas, such as politics, the economy and security. Yet the United States’ recent actions have been disappointing. The U.S., which prides itself on being the defender of international order, has used a “whole-of-government” approach to attack China on all fronts. The U.S. has both blamed others for its lack of effort in controlling the pandemic occurring within its own country, and has stopped at nothing to use different multilateral occasions to instigate, discredit and undermine international anti-epidemic efforts.

According to some U.S. politicians, China is not only a challenger to the U.S.’ global leadership, but is also a serious threat to international peace and security. Those with even an ounce of rationality and general knowledge of international relations would scoff at such arguments. But in order to prevent repeated lies from being regarded as truth, we must wipe the slate clean and find out who’s really the “troublemaker” that’s causing the world to descend into disorder.

First let’s address a basic fact that needs clarification. After the end of the Cold War, the U.S. interfered in foreign affairs many times, from Bill Clinton’s presidency all the way to Barack Obama’s. This includes military operations in countries such as former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, as well as conspiring in a series of color revolutions in the Soviet Union and Middle East. Whether through the use of troops or a discreet show of support, the basic goal of U.S. intervention is always similar: overthrow any regime hostile to the U.S. government. Any regime that does not conform to the interests or values of the U.S. is likely to be charged with baseless accusations from “supporting terrorism” to running an “authoritarian dictatorship” in order to justify U.S. interference.

So did U.S. interference after the Cold War achieve the “protection of human rights,” “promotion of democracy” and “eradication of terrorism” so as to improve the welfare of locals and promote regional security and peace? It’s quite obvious, the answer is no. After 9/11, President George W. Bush launched the Global War on Terror; however, resorting to war in order to “counter terrorism” did nothing but create more fear. Afghanistan and Iraq have never really enjoyed peace in the past 20 years and the U.S. is deeply mired in the “fight against terrorism” and cannot pull itself out. Perhaps taking note from the war on terror, Obama showed a degree of caution in the use of foreign military, but at the same time he used more covert means to interfere in regional affairs, as in the case of the color revolutions. A color revolution involves mostly nonviolent means to achieve regime change, which is significantly different from the traditional way of overthrowing power through armed struggle. However, the success of color revolutions hinges on planning and assistance from Western countries, the U.S. in particular. The political system of a country that has been altered due to foreign intervention often lacks a foundation of domestic consensus, and all “revolutionary achievements” will prove to be extremely unstable.

For example, after the color revolution in Ukraine the political situation has been volatile for quite some time. Corruption remains prominent, there’s been no substantial progress in the implementation of promised reforms and popular discontent is growing. According to data released by Gallup in 2016, 9% of Ukrainians report feeling happy, compared to the 70% who feel the economy is going through a depression, showing that the living conditions of Ukrainians have not improved as a result of the color revolution. In Kyrgyzstan, U.S.-backed opposition leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev overthrew President Askar Akayev’s regime in the Tulip Revolution. Only five years later, however, Bakiyev became the target of another anti-government movement and dejectedly stepped down. In October, Kyrgyzstan President Sooronbai Jeenbekov was forced to resign due to another eruption of mass protests after parliamentary elections. It’s been proven that regime change brought about by careless foreign intervention can’t solve the numerous problems and conflicts that exist within a country’s administration, let alone bring about political stability, economic development and improve the livelihood of people in the countries and regions concerned.

If the U.S.’s support for the “color revolution” in the Soviet Union could be considered slightly restrained because it involved a geopolitical game between the U.S. and Russia, then its conspiracies during the Arab Spring were completely brazen. The U.S. and other Western nations had high expectations for this “democratic” Arab movement, which they fully supported, yet it led to the abnormal collapse of the existing political structure in that region. Islamic State and other extremist groups used the opportunity to expand their territory, and the displacement of locals led to Europe’s overwhelming refugee crisis. In Syria, for example, the U.S. has conspired to overthrow the Syrian government on several occasions throughout history. In 2011, anti-government demonstrations in Syria quickly dissolved into an armed conflict. The U.S. and other Western countries immediately provided anti-government opposition with support in the form of funding, weapons and personnel training. The U.S. also deployed troops to participate in combat. Due to intervention from the U.S. and other Western countries, the Syrian civil war has now become more complicated and drawn out. As of 2020, the number of Syrian refugees has exceeded 6.7 million, and the civil war has reduced the average life expectancy of Syrians by 20 years and set the economy back by 40.

Now, why exactly would the U.S. be so eager to interfere in other countries’ affairs? The answer can be found in the post-Cold War strategy it developed. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the original balance of power that restricted the U.S. shifted, and soon it became the only superpower in the international system. Once this moment came, U.S. politicians and strategists who were reveling in their “victory” in the Cold War quickly agreed on strengthening and maintaining the U.S.’s lead role as the core of foreign policy. As for how to achieve this goal, strategists considered this question from different angles. In the end, liberal internationalism gained the upper hand, and gradually began to shape foreign policy. The gist of it was to take advantage of the U.S.’s rare position as a superpower, backed with a strong military and economy, to promote American democracy and implement regime change. In this way they could build an international order conducive to maintaining a U.S. hegemony.

In September 2002, the Bush administration issued its first national security strategy, which explicitly stated that the U.S. should work to bring about “peace under U.S. rule.”* “The U.S. is destined to lead the world,” “without U.S. leadership, the world will no longer be safe,”* such perceptions legitimize the U.S.’s distortion of the idea of “world leadership,” and instead favor the idea of “intervention and interference.” This view also dominates the thinking of U.S. strategists and policy makers. Crises and upheavals around the world need to be resolved through the exportation of U.S. liberal political practices. If turmoil continues or even intensifies after U.S. intervention, it will be assumed that it was due to intervention not being thorough enough. Such absurd logic became apparent in a series of foreign interventions carried out by the U.S. in the early 21st century.

However, the reality of this “U.S. rule” is that U.S.-backed color revolutions brought not hope but political turmoil, and in spite of a regime change economic instability was still persistent. The “Arab Spring” has evolved into the “Arab Winter,” and many countries are still suffering from wars. In order to bring about the illusory goal of “U.S. rule,” the U.S. has abandoned a series of international rules and regulations that it helped create after World War II. The U.S. wouldn’t think twice about undermining regional security and peace in order to maintain its hegemony.

Many facts have proven that the U.S. failed to play its leading role in bringing about peace and stability after the end of the Cold War. On the contrary, its actions greatly intensified old conflicts, created new problems and expended its own hard and soft power. As many U.S. strategic realist scholars have warned, a diplomatic strategy driven by liberal ideology cannot last. In the past three years the U.S. seems to no longer be keen on leading global affairs, and its blatant interventions have also declined. However, this doesn’t mean it’s returning to the norms of the contemporary international arena laid out by the framework of the United Nations Charter. In fact, President Donald Trump’s contempt for international institutions and regulations have reached another level.

For example, in September of this year, Trump’s chief adviser on Latin American affairs, Mauricio Claver-Carone, became the new president of the Inter-American Development Bank. This broke with the bank’s long-standing tradition since its establishment in 1959 of having a Latin American president. Nominating a highly controversial political broker who has never engaged in development assistance to serve as the bank’s president fully demonstrates that the U.S. has placed the actual developmental needs of Latin American countries below its own political goals. The plan to control and influence the political and economic scene in Latin America through the use of development assistance has been exposed. As British magazine The Economist stated, such a move symbolizes a return to the Monroe Doctrine, another failure of the weak and divided Latin American countries.

From color revolutions to the Arab Spring to the new Monroe Doctrine, the consequences of U.S. global intervention are obvious to all. The U.S., unprovoked, accuses other countries of threatening international peace and security while it has without restraint interfered in the internal affairs of other nations in various ways, constantly caused regional instability, and even created new threats. All of this is motivated by outdated logic that is driven by power politics and a savior complex. As long as the U.S. still clings to the fantasy of “peace under U.S. rule” and the imbalance remains within the international system, the U.S.’s impulse to intervene in other countries’ affairs will never be restrained, and there will continue to be “unrest under U.S. rule.”

Huang Haitao is a researcher at the Tianjin Research Center for study of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics at Nankai University.

*Editor’s Note: These quotes, accurately translated, could not be verified.