As the official representatives of the political and military establishment of the United States admitted in an article drafted by Anthony Blinken and Lloyd Austin for the Washington Post, under the present circumstances, Washington has adopted a grand strategy of creating numerous alliances that are bound to serve as “force multipliers” that are to ensure “a world of distinct American primacy”.
There’s no arguing that this strategy was considered due to the fact that Washington has been rapidly losing its former universal appeal for quite a while, which triggers a global shift from the unipolar global order to a multipolar one. Therefore, the US is going to try to share the responsibility for its unprovoked military intrusions with its allies, both old and new. In this context, there’s no wonder that Washington is working frantically to create a massive network of various regional military and political alliances, as by putting itself in the driving seat in the absolute majority of those yet-to-be-built entities, Washington hopes to strengthen its authority across the globe, while reducing the spread of anti-American sentiments. There’s a clearly distinguishable desire within the US ruling elite to shift the blame for the steps that Washington is about to take on other nations.
As a result, it’s no wonder that the United States has recently intensified its military and political activities in different regions of the world.
Considerable efforts are being undertaken on the path to revive the idea of establishing the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) or the so-called “Arab NATO” that was first voiced back in 2018. MESA was supposed to encompass a total of six Sunni countries of the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain), as well as Egypt and Jordan. At the same time, American think-tanks for some strange reason decided to assume that the Jewish state would provide this entity with intelligence, although officially neither Israel nor the United States are willing to assume the responsibility to protect members of MESA, as member-states of the original NATO are bound to. According to different statements made by US military officials, the activities of the future military-political bloc are to be aimed at maintaining stability in the Middle East, countering terrorism and extremism, and, most importantly, deterring Iran’s expansion in the region. Tehran has already responded to those designs by stating that the above mentioned initiative will not just aggravate tensions in the region, but will exacerbate differences between Iran and the US-backed Arab countries, pushing the latter to the brink of a direct military conflict.
At the same time, there’s no practical way of bringing the “Arab NATO” into existence, as most Arab countries have their own understanding of the security challenges each of them is facing, as they don’t have a common enemy, although the United States is trying to frame Iran as such. But opinions differ wildly on the policies pursued by the Islamic Republic across the region, as only a smart portion of emirates that form the UAE share a negative outlook on Iran, while Doha will be happy to become friends with Tehran just to make Riyadh angry.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Washington is also desperately trying to establish a military block of its own. In fact, the US is trying to build a new organization upon the wreckages of two shattered military alliances of the past that were created as early as in the 1950s: ANZUS that encompassed a total of three English-speaking countries (the United States, Australia and New Zealand) and SEATO (The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) that brought together Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, the United States, France, Thailand, Pakistan, and the Philippines. However, these days the White House has decided to resort to gunboat diplomacy in this region of the world, that is why it tries to put emphasis its three key allies-Japan, Australia and India (that form the so-called QUAD together with the US). At the same time, it’s clear that American think-tanks would base this decision on the notion that Australia is a traditional ally of the United States, that speaks the same good-old English language; Japan has been under the strong US influence since the end of World War II as it houses more than a thousand American servicemen across numerous military installations; while India remains concerned about its growing competition with China.
In order to better prepare the formation of such a military alliance and lay the groundwork for a “collective opposition to China”, US secretary of defense Lloyd Austin and US secretary of state Anthony Blinken have recently embarked on Asian tour, visiting Japan, South Korea and India. However, many international experts and even American media figures are pointing out the futility of such plans as they are associated with a large number of unjustified risks for Washington.
We shouldn’t also forget about Washington’s attempts to create a military-political alliance controlled by the United States in the Mediterranean-North Africa. To this end, the US Congress signed into law the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act, which provides a road map for undermining Russia’s political, economic and military ties with the states of the region, substituting Russian gas supplies to Europe and pursing rapid militarization of the entire region to the detriment of Russia and Turkey.
In particular, this act declares the need for strengthening security cooperation with Greece, Cyprus and Israel through intelligence sharing and awareness-raising both in cyberspace and at sea, as well as strengthening cooperation with North African countries. To advance this agenda, the former US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper visited Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Malta last year. He manged to persuade Tunisia and Morocco into signing major roadmaps promoting bilateral cooperation with the US in the field of defense and security cooperation. His visit to Algeria didn’t produce any tangible results, which can be largely attributed to this North African country’s close military and political ties with Russia. However, taking into account those statements that the new President of Algeria Abdelmadjid Tebboune has recently made about his outlook on foreign relations and the fact that the former regime is now all but gone, the United States is bound to restart its relations with this country in a bid to extend its influence.
Along Russia’s Western borders the United States is going to advance the concept of “land between the seas”, creating a wall out of semi-hostile states with Poland in charge in a bid to separate Russia from Germany and France. In the south, the United States has stepped up attempts to create another military-political alliance under its control – in Central Asia, for which Washington is actively promoting various military-political initiatives in the C5+1 format.
Thus, we see that the United States is implementing its aggressive policies openly in a bid to create a fortress moat of military and political alliances from the Atlantic coast of North Africa to the Far East, which would cut Eurasia and Africa in two. However, such saber-rattling away from home on Washington’s part urges the political elites of Eurasia and Africa to objectively assess the risks of possible armed confrontations for the sake of America’s interests. Which is why such initiatives are being met with widespread opposition, with some of the closest US acting in defiance. And this, in turn, leads to an even greater decline in the US influence across the world, which facilitates the emergence of a new multipolar world.
Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.