Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to demonstrate the progressive economic decline and loss of the status of hegemonic power in the world by the United States and the effort of the US government to use all means, including the industrial-military complex and the war economy, to combat its potential enemies, such as China, which threatens its world hegemony, and Russia, China’s ally. The risk is that the war that the United States intends to wage against Russia and China could devastate the Chinese, American and global economies, destroy the ongoing process of economic and financial globalization and trigger the 3rd World War. Paul Keynnedy’s book, Ascensão e queda das grandes potências: Transformação econômica e conflito militar de 1500 a 2000 (The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Transformation and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000) [1], has become a great geopolitical classic since its publication three decades ago. Paul Kennedy states in this book that if a great power exceeds strategically, for example, by conquering extensive territories (like England in the 19th century), or in costly wars (as is the case with the United States since World War II), runs the risk of seeing the potential advantages of expanding abroad outweighed by the large expenditures required. What is in parentheses in this paragraph and in the others corresponds to the opinion of the author of this article.
Paul Kennedy states that the great powers’ dilemma of strategically overcoming the conquest of extensive territories or taking on costly wars becomes acute if the country in question has entered a period of relative economic decline (as was the case with England in the 20th century and the United States in the 21st Century). The history of the rise and fall of the leading countries of the great powers system, since the advance of western Europe in the sixteenth century, that is, of nations such as Spain, Holland, France, the British Empire and, currently, the United States, shows that, in In the longer term, there is a tendency to reduce the capacity of the hegemonic power to produce and generate revenue, on the one hand, and the excessive increase in spending on military force, on the other, which contribute to its decline.
Paul Kennedy’s thesis is that the relative strength of the great powers on the world stage never remains constant, mainly due, first, to the unequal growth rate between different nations (as is the case of the accentuated economic decline of the hegemonic power, the United States, and the vertiginous economic rise of China) and, second, the technological and organizational innovations that give a given nation a greater advantage than another (as is the case of China which, after undergoing an extraordinary structural change, becoming the largest producer and export center of manufactured goods in the world, 70% larger than that of the United States, and constituting a productive and business system that competes for global leadership in several segments, it has also been consolidating itself as a leading country in scientific and technological innovation tending to supplant the United States).
Paul Kennedy states that when the productive capacity of the United States increased, it was usually easier to bear the burden of large-scale armaments in peacetime, and to maintain and supply large armies and navies during the wars it unleashed. Wealth is generally necessary to military power, according to Paul Kennedy, which, in turn, is generally necessary to the acquisition and protection of wealth. If, however, too large a proportion of the country’s resources are diverted from wealth creation and allocated to military purposes (as is the case in the United States), then this is likely to lead to a weakening of national power. Paul Kennedy makes it clear that there is a temporal gap between the trajectory of the relative economic strength of a given national state and its military or territorial influence.
According to Paul Kennedy, the power in economic expansion may well prefer to be richer than to invest heavily in weapons (as occurred with the United States until the 2nd World War). Paul Kennedy states that priorities change over time because economic expansion brought with it other obligations, that is, facing dependence on foreign markets and raw materials, military alliances, and perhaps bases and colonies (as happened with the United States after the 2nd World War). Paul Kennedy claims that other rival powers that are expanding at a faster pace, therefore, want, in turn, to extend their influence abroad (as was the case with the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1989 and is the case with China today).
Paul Kennedy states that, in the contemporary era, the world becomes a more disputed space with the great powers (such as the United States, China and Russia) competing hard for market shares. Under these circumstances, the most troubled power among the rest (the United States) may find itself spending more on the military than before. The world has become more hostile simply because other powers have grown faster and are becoming stronger (such as China and India). The great power in relative decline (the United States) reacts instinctively, spending even more on its “security” and that of its allies and, with that, stops using potential resources in “productive investment”. It further aggravates your long-term dilemma. (This is the situation of the United States, which, at the present time, is no longer able to assume its military expenditures as before without compromising its economy and putting the world economy in check).
According to Paul Kennedy, many analysts claim that other emerging countries are reaching the same level as countries in the developed world (such as China and India), and the United States is suffering a relative economic decline, as it produces a smaller share of world GDP, even with the country growing faster than most major developed economies and still being the largest economy in the world in absolute terms. Several emerging countries are gaining an ever-increasing share of the world’s GDP. Forecast by Goldman Sachs, China will have surpassed the United States in 2050, with a GDP of US$ 45 trillion, against US$ 35 trillion for the United States. Paul Kennedy states that what seems incontestable to him is that, in a long and drawn-out war between great powers, usually in coalition with others, victory has repeatedly gone to the side with the most flourishing productive base (which, under current conditions, is the case from China).
Paul Kennedy argues that, in the contemporary era, the world has become more hostile to the United States because other powers have grown faster and are becoming stronger (as is especially the case with China). The hegemonic power, the United States, in relative decline reacts, instinctively, spending even more on armaments to sustain its wars and, with that, fails to use potential resources in “productive investment”, further aggravating its economic decline in the long term. This is the situation of the United States which, at the present moment, is no longer able to assume its military expenses as before, given that, according to Paul Kennedy, the United States had become an international debtor country for the first time and was increasingly dependent on the entry of European and Japanese capital in the second half of the 20th century. In the 20th century, Japan was on the rise. The feeling of decadence came close to hysteria in the United States as Japanese companies bought assets symbolic of the former strength of American capitalism. Today, in addition to depending on European and Japanese capital inflows, the United States is significantly dependent on capital from China. Professor Paul Kennedy’s thesis is being confirmed even in the contemporary era. By the prediction of Goldman Sachs, China will have, in 2050, economically surpassed the United States.
According to Paul Kennedy, the United States overextended its empire, to the point of no longer being able to administer it, as happened with Spain in the 17th century and the United Kingdom in the 20th century. Another empire, the Soviet one, was the first to demonstrate inability to manage, in the 1980s, because military spending exceeded all limits that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. (Rising US military spending could lead to the same outcome in the 21st century.) It should be noted that China, although seen by many as the main beneficiary of the decline of the United States, has had its own experience of decline. Until the mid-16th century, it was more technologically advanced than Europe, with more efficient agriculture, and the mandarin class was unrivaled in its professionalism. Even after the West surpassed it, economically and technologically, between the 16th and 18th centuries, China’s economy was still the largest in the world when the English industrial revolution began.
Entirely agreeing with the thinking of Paul Kennedy exposed in the paragraphs above, we can say that, to avoid its decline as a hegemonic power in the world, the US government uses its industrial-military complex [4] and its war economy [6] to combat its potential enemies, such as China, which threatens its world hegemony, and Russia, China’s ally. Massive cooperation between the US military and its industries during World War II, when two-thirds of the US economy was integrated into the war effort in late 1943, helped to form the military-industrial complex and transform the US economy in a war economy in the service of the post-war expansion of US imperialism. The construction and expansion of the North American military-industrial complex and the war economy during the 2nd World War constituted powerful instruments in the service of the global power of the United States [7].
Since World War II, military spending has multiplied in the United States and, driven by the Cold War and then by 9/11, has never stopped growing [5]. The United States government has also used war since World War II as an ongoing effort to avoid deteriorating economic conditions or currency crises in the country, with the government promoting the expansion of services and jobs in the armed forces and the expansion of the war industry, which is the largest in the world. With nearly 40% of military spending worldwide, the United States exceeds what other countries combined spend on this item. The military budget for 2022 was 778 billion dollars, and for 2023 it rises to 813 billion dollars.
The power of the United States military-industrial complex was denounced by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1961 when he left the presidency of the Republic when he stated that the country was developing “an immense military establishment and a great war industry” whose influence was felt in every aspect of the life of the country. While he recognized “the imperative need for this development”, he did not fail to “understand its grave implications”. In particular, Eisenhower warned that one must guard against “unwarranted influence” by that “military-industrial complex” within the government. He asserted that “every weapon manufactured, every warship launched, every rocket fired ultimately means a theft from those who are hungry and unfed, from those who are cold and have no clothes to wrap themselves warmly” [3] [ 4].
The permanent war of the United States supported by the military-industrial complex cannibalized the country creating a social, political and economic swamp [2]. The permanent war economy, implemented since the end of World War II, has contributed to destroying the US private economy and wasting trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. The monopolization of capital by the military-industrial complex has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $6 trillion more than the country’s GDP of $24 trillion. Servicing that debt costs $300 billion a year. The United States pays a high social, political and economic cost for its warmongering. The US government passively watches as America rots, morally, politically and economically. US military adventurism accelerates its decline, as the defeat in Vietnam and the waste of US$ 8 trillion in wars in the Middle East illustrate [1].
In the United States, extravagant military spending is justified in the name of “national security”. The nearly $40 billion allocated to Ukraine, most of it going to arms makers such as Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, is just the beginning. Military strategists, who say the war will be long and drawn out, are talking about allocating $4 or $5 billion a month in military aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the American people face existential threats that are not taken into account by the government. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.6 billion. The proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.8 billion. Ukraine alone receives more than double those amounts from the United States to sustain the war against Russia. Social problems and the climate emergency are secondary to the US government. War is all that matters [1].
The US government believes that the war in Ukraine and economic sanctions will undermine Russia’s economy, rich in gas and natural resources, and could contribute to the downfall of Vladimir Putin and that the war in Ukraine will curb Russia’s growing economic and military influence in Europe. With a government and ruling class unable to save its own society and economy, the United States seeks to destroy its global competitors Russia and China economically and militarily. The immediate expectation of warmongers in the United States is to eliminate Russia’s power of influence in Europe to focus on economic warfare and military aggression against China in the Indo-Pacific. If the US can completely cut Russian gas supplies to Europe, it will force Europeans to buy from US suppliers. On the economic front, the United States, whose annual GDP growth rate is around 2%, seeks to compromise China’s economy, whose growth rate is around 5%, so that this country does not exceed it. The US government is desperately trying to build military and economic alliances to prevent China from overtaking the US in 2028 predicted by the UK Center for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) [8].
The risk is that the war that the United States intends to unleash against China could devastate the Chinese, American and global economies, destroying free trade between countries as occurred in the First World War and also destroying the process of economic and financial globalization. The second consequence of the conflict with China and the decline of the United States is that the US dollar ceases to be the world’s reserve currency, precipitating the economic collapse of the United States. This will force the immediate contraction of US imperialism, which will be forced to close most of its nearly 800 military bases in at least 80 countries abroad. The third and worst consequence is that the war against China, and also against Russia, China’s ally, could trigger the 3rd World War that would turn into Armageddon, that is, the final war, with the possibility that the contenders allies and opponents of the United States to use their nuclear weapons.
The current situation on the planet is dramatic. Humanity feels crushed by the great world powers, which at the service of the respective monopoly groups, unleash wars all over the planet, disrespecting laws, cultures, traditions and religions. Invasions in peripheral countries, openly or surreptitiously, with unconvincing arguments, have been part of the daily life of the great powers in their incessant quest for world power throughout history, even if they have to disrespect internal laws and international treaties. What end will our world, our lives have, if today’s world has turned into an unmanageable chaos in which human beings only think about power and wealth? Can man be called the smartest being on Earth? Would an intelligent being preach war and put his future and that of his descendants at risk? That’s what they do today with our world, they destroy for money, they kill for wealth and power, lives are no longer worth anything, nothing else has value, all this for power and wealth!
The history of the world is, to a large extent, a history of wars, because the national states were born out of conquests, civil wars or struggles for independence. The oldest known historical records already speak of wars and struggles. It is therefore not surprising that now, at the time of the harvest of all the evil actions generated by humanity, the number of wars and revolutions has grown on a scale never seen in the 20th and 21st centuries, both in quantity and intensity. The violence of conflict in the 20th century is unparalleled in history. Twentieth-century wars were “total wars” against combatants and civilians alike. The twentieth century was arguably the most murderous on record, both in the scale, frequency and extent of warfare and also in the sheer number of human catastrophes it produced, from the greatest famines in history to systematic genocide. All the “mega-deaths” that have occurred in wars since 1914 amounted to a total of 187 million dead. Since the end of the Second World War until the present moment, the world has known 160 wars when around 7 million soldiers and 30 million civilians died. What happened in the 20th century must be prevented from happening again in the 21st century.
Wars continue to be part of our daily lives, as demonstrated by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which highlights the purpose of the Western powers (United States and European Union countries), allies of Ukraine, to weaken Russia’s geopolitical position, which seeks to resume the world role formerly played by the former Soviet Union, and to prevent the rise of China as a hegemonic power on the planet. The insoluble Palestinian question, which has lasted since the end of the 1st World War when the victorious powers contributed to the occupation of Palestine by the Jewish people and facilitated the creation of the State of Israel to the detriment of the Palestinian people, makes the Palestinian and Jewish peoples live in permanent war. The recent US military intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya complete the picture of conflicts in the Middle East.
The time has come for humanity to equip itself, as urgently as possible, with the instruments necessary for building world peace and controlling its destiny. In order to achieve these objectives, it is urgent to unleash on a planetary scale a movement for world peace and for the implementation of a democratic government of the world that constitutes the only means of survival of the human species capable of building a world in which every woman, every man of today and tomorrow do not suffer, as in the past, the disastrous consequences of wars. The preservation of world peace is the first mission of every new form of world government. Its objective would be to defend the general interests of the planet, making it compatible with the interests of each nation. The world government would act to make the international system evolve in an environment of peace between nations only in the context of international relations, not intervening in the internal affairs of each country. Each country must be sovereign to act within the limits of its territory and not to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries. What would not be accepted is any country intervening with the use of force in the internal affairs of other countries, as has happened throughout history. The world government would guarantee respect for the sovereignty of the countries of the world, especially the weakest ones. The absence of a world government is what would pose a threat to the national sovereignty of most countries because they would be at the mercy of the strongest as has been the case throughout history. This is the way to prevent any country from intervening in the internal affairs of other countries, including the great economic and military powers. The vast majority of countries in the world would benefit from having a democratic world government.
REFERENCES
1. KENNEDY, Paul. Ascensão e queda das grandes potências: Transformação econômica e conflito militar de 1500 a 2000. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Campus, 1989.
2. HEDGES, Chris. Política de guerra permanente dos EUA destruiu economia e faliu o país’, diz Chris Hedges. Available on the website <https://horadopovo.com.br/politica-de-guerra-permanente-dos-eua-destruiu-economia-e-faliu-o-pais-diz-chris-hedges/>.
3. INSTITUTO HUMANITAS UNISINOS. Estados Unidos: uma economia de guerra contra a sociedade. Available on the website <https://www.ihu.unisinos.br/categorias/618204-estados-unidos-uma-economia-de-guerra-contra-a-sociedade>.
4. WIKIPEDIA. Complexo militar-industrial. Available on the website <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexo_militar-industrial>.
5. MAGNOTTA, Fernanda. Nos EUA, complexo industrial-militar se beneficia com a Guerra da Ucrânia. Available on the website <https://noticias.uol.com.br/colunas/fernanda-magnotta/2022/05/07/nos-eua-complexo-industrial-militar-se-beneficia-com-a-guerra-da-ucrania.htm>.
6. WIKIPEDIA. War economy. Available on the website <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_economy>.
7. ALCOFORADO, Fernando. O imperativo do fim do complexo industrial-militar e da economia de guerra no mundo. Available on the website <https://www.academia.edu/101868099/O_IMPERATIVO_DO_FIM_DO_COMPLEXO_INDUSTRIAL_MILITAR_E_DA_ECONOMIA_DE_GUERRA_NO_MUNDO>.
8. BBC NEWS BRASIL. Por que a economia chinesa deve passar a dos EUA em 2028, 5 anos antes do previsto. Available on the website <https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-55496970>.
* Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science and of IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, college professor (Engineering, Economy and Administration) and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning, urban planning and energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric power distribution company from Rio de Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia Research and Development Center, Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning of Salvador, is the author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2022), a chapter in the book Flood Handbook (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida United States, 2022) and How to protect human beings from threats to their existence and avoid the extinction of humanity (Generis Publishing, Europe, Republic of Moldova, Chișinău, 2023).
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