America’s New Strategy

Most political analysts read the future of the international, natural and geographical relationships of global conflict through the American compass. Because this political mechanism is essentially pragmatic and opportunistic, some see many similarities in it.

According to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, it is not the smartest or most powerful organisms that survive, but rather those that are best able to adapt. Here the American political mind seems to be the most flexible to the extent that Alexis de Tocqueville says that this feature of American policy certainly does not mean that America has no global strategic vision, but demonstrates the dynamism which characterizes it. This dynamism is intended to prevent it from dealing with new realities with an old, stereotypical outlook.

On the topic of a new strategy, this defends what U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in the State of the Union Address. Under Obama, U.S. trends in espionage, military affairs and economics began to change towards the Pacific Ocean and Southeast Asia, which analysts believe is the most important change in the U.S. political compass, or at least in its priorities, since the Vietnam War. It is a sign that geostrategic shifts have occurred in the world. American policy must adapt with reality. After the U.S. found itself hurting in terms of lives lost and finances, as a result of its wars in the Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and other countries in the Middle East, it looked to the Old Continent as it sank into financial crisis.

Currently, the region is becoming a silent Holocaust by a slow death to the forthcoming empire. Here, American strategists look east where the Pacific Ocean and America’s future interests lie, and the rising dragon is a true rival to the global leadership. In terms of numbers, U.S. exports to those countries exceed $340 million and about 55 percent of exports in addition to 850,000 American jobs and hundreds of giant corporations, which work in China.

On a military level and in terms of the competition for spheres of influence, China is the rising giant on all levels. On one hand, China has deployed a generation of highly sophisticated weapons, and on the other, it is strengthening its navy. All of this calls for America to restore the military and geostrategic balance, which Clinton expressed by saying that we live in an American-Pacific age.

Strategically, what does this change in the world order mean for Arabs? Does it mean that we will get rid of the cost of American focus on our region for more than seven decades? Will the region encounter new clashes of another kind? Will there be newcomers to the region, or will the region emerge from the cycle of conflict and targeting?

These are undoubtedly important questions and answering them is not easy. The region does not understand the degree of importance of being a strategic priority of the United States or the West in general, but by virtue of its geopolitical location, its cultural importance, and its resources, and before this, the location of the Zionist entity in its heart. However, from a strategic point of view, it must take into consideration the U.S. priorities, noting that the U.S. talk about reorienting towards the Pacific was accompanied with a confirmation that the U.S.-Israeli relationship is not based on shared interests. It is a relation of a special nature linked to the functional role of Israel in the region and the effect of the Jewish lobby in the American body politic.

As for its relations with the Gulf countries, there is no doubt that the makers of this strategy did not hide the importance of what they call concern for Gulf security and stability. Talk about their quest to prevent Iran from developing nuclear and military capabilities sends reassuring messages to its allies. From our point of view, it is not for the sake of the Gulf rulers, but out of fear for Israel, which sees Iran as its archenemy and the greatest threat to its security, stability and the future of its existence.

Undoubtedly, American strategists want to send several messages to the countries of the world through this approach. The first message, directed at China, is that America will not allow China to expand in the Pacific region and it will have a growing presence politically, intellectually and economically.

The second message, directed at the Gulf countries and Israel, is that despite this change, they need not worry much and the region has not lost its importance, and is perhaps only rearranged among these new priorities. It will still be serious, but Americans prefer, at this juncture, to invest its political efforts and not its military forces. This translates into a change in the role of the military in the regional alliance. This might also be a result and manifestation of the crisis in Syria and the regional turmoil interfering with this matter.

The third message is addressed to Europe, the Old Continent, which the U.S. revitalized via the Marshall Plan, which rescued the economy and the American nuclear umbrella, which protected it from Soviet oppression and turned to a political umbrella. Thus, this continent needs to depend on themselves, take up the burden of its own security, and address its economy and finances. After today, Europe will not be America’s strategic burden.

Finally, the saying that if America is weakened by the costs of the wars against terrorism and its repercussions on its economy, it will turn to Obama’s concept whereby the U.S. acts not by military force. The America of soft wars, as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, is an essential change in the nature of modern American wars. Air or naval strikes from afar employ electronic, technological and scientific superiority, or what has been described as leading from behind. More clearly, wars will be without the cost to humanity, but be a matter of wars over information technology and superior cognitive power.

Americans have suddenly discovered that the cost of the so-called War on Terrorism was too high and adopted a new philosophy expressed by Obama at the State of the Union when he said that the country will remain civilized and vigilant, especially in the Middle East. However, the whole world must know that the U.S. will maintain its military superiority with fewer troops, faster, more widespread intervention and the highest technological training.

The disgusting thing is that the U.S. president who promised the world and the American people during his election campaign that he would change U.S. foreign policy, which cost the American people and the peoples of the world a lot of blood, pain and suffering, hurt the reputation of America, and spread gloom on a global scale. The Secretary of State at his side overlooking the Americans and the world had something to say to this effect: the America that wants to change its skin does not want to change its mentality of domination.