Isolated America
Like so much else these days, geopolitics is in tumult. That much is clear to everybody, or everybody outside the business-as-usual US foreign policy establishment anyhow. It’s even evident to a few Washington insiders.
But what are the causes and possible effects of this tumult?
The two choices we’re usually presented with are a new bipolar Cold War pitting the US, Europe and their allies against China, Russia and their allies, with a few hardy — or perhaps foolhardy — states trying to exist in the middle; or a “multipolar world,” in which coalitions and even alliances form here and there on specific issues, but countries follow the beat of national drums rather than grouping into fixed blocks.
Lately, signs can be detected of a third option taking shape: The US largely on its own; China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and most other countries in another loosely constituted camp; and Europe, the “Anglosphere,” Japan, and perhaps South Korea trying to exist in the middle.
Maybe it won’t turn out to be quite so dire for the country which, until recently could, without appearing totally insane, think of itself as the world’s only superpower. However, imagining a scenario of this type might open some eyes to just how isolated the US position — with its tendency to see issues in black and white, denounce “evil” in its enemies, and ignore flaws in itself and its friends — has become over the course of the last two administrations, while Washington was mired in unseemly domestic politics, punctuated by Cold War fantasies.
Suddenly Hyperactive Xi
In this thought experiment, consider these recent events: China mediated an accord between Saudi Arabia and Iran that calls for resuming diplomatic relations, winding down the Yemen War, and generally easing regional tensions of decades-standing. Events are going according to the Chinese-associated plan so far, including a joint visit by senior Saudi and Iranian diplomats to Beijing in early April and indications that a talks on a “permanent” Yemen ceasefire are imminent.
US Mideast moves over this period present a striking contrast. Multiple US air strikes in Syria perhaps killed up to eight unidentified people, in explicit retaliation for the death of a US military contractor and injury of some other Americans in Syria in a drone attack that the US military attributed to “Iran-aligned groups” — without providing evidence. The US military used a drone to execute someone it said — again without providing evidence — was a senior Islamic State member in charge of planning attacks in Europe. A nuclear-powered, cruise-missile carrying submarine entered the Mediterranean, the Navy said.
Meanwhile, a state visit by China’s suddenly peripatetic President Xi Jinping to Russia brought no peace accord, but no arms sales or natural gas deals either, as Washington had warned it might. Xi did indicate rock-solid diplomatic support for Russia, though, and was seen as encouraging Chinese companies to export more civilian goods to Russia as its consumer sector grapples with pervasive Western sanctions.
In early April, French President Emmanuel Macron, while on a high-profile state visit to China, pled with Xi to try his mediation magic on the Ukraine conflict, too. Macron spoke by phone to US President Joe Biden ahead of his visit to China, but Washington reportedly remains “skeptical” of a Chinese role in any Ukraine peace talks.
The US has also held military exercises with South Korea aimed at showing trigger-happy, nuclear-armed North Korea who’s boss. And on a different note, Washington is keeping its closest allies, the Europeans, in a nervous frenzy with protectionist provisions of its clean-energy-oriented Inflation Reduction Act.
The optics of all this are, almost inarguably, very bad for the US and good for China. Who wants to be on the US side in this particular game?
Suddenly Peaceful Kingdom
Not Saudi Arabia, it seems. The suddenly peaceable kingdom is not only holding hands with Iran in Beijing, it’s making nice with Iranian- and Russian-supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even as US and Israeli bombs fall on various bits of Syria. Reconstruction aid to that decimated country remains prohibited under US sanctions, despite the absence of any US-favored alternative to the Assad government.
The Saudis also organized an abrupt announcement of big cuts in oil production that pushed softening oil prices back up — the latest in a recent series of blatant snubs by the kingdom of its longstanding US protector. Higher oil prices are bad for China as well as the US, but the blow is softened for China by huge discounts on oil it buys from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, thanks again to US sanctions.
This leaves the Saudis increasingly in the Chinese and Russia camp, at least to appearances. The Russians are joint leaders with the Saudis of the Opec-Plus group that officially oversees its members’ oil production decisions. The Saudis and UAE are also helping Russia and China slowly shift towards payment for oil in currencies other than dollars.
The oil scene has become so weird under the burden of convoluted US policies that even Washington’s best East Asian buddies, the Japanese, are semi-openly buying Russian oil at prices above the cap Washington imposed under the aegis of the G-7. Did I mention that Japan is in the G-7? The Chinese have offered to keep buying lots of Arab oil and help them develop New Energy and other high tech manufacturing, but no dollars, please.
India, another country Washington has been wooing as a counter to China, is in competition with Beijing to be the biggest purchaser of the Russian oil Europe turned away beginning in January. Indian refineries are processing a lot of the crude and sending the products back to — you guessed it — Europe, with payment to Russia often in currencies other than dollars.
Suddenly Lonely US
From energy supply and climate angles, the potential for US isolation seems all the greater. On the Old Energy side, the top three oil and gas suppliers, by far, are the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia. The Russians and Saudis are increasingly aligned against the US, and America’s ability to combat those countries’ pricing policies through raising or lowering its own production is shrinking, along with its ability to help out its allies with extra oil or natural gas. The shale revolution that gave the US such a burst of fossil fuel adrenalin is fizzling out — as it should if the climate is to be saved. The US can continue to take care of its Old Energy self, but that’s probably about it.
On the New Energy Side, the geopolitical picture is different, but not that different. China is not only far ahead in adopting solar, wind, batteries, EVs, and other clean energy, it also has vast purpose-built and rapidly expanding export capacity in these fields. The US is still back near the starting line, trying to rev up the manufacturing capacity to meet its own needs. Europe is in similar shape. The world cannot look to the West to power the transition abroad while it’s struggling mightily at home.
China’s ability to play the role of solar, wind, and battery supplier to the world could well be as important in the 21st Century as oil leadership was for the US in the 20th Century. The US now often seems like the flailing bully that nobody want to play with for fun, and who is no longer scary enough that people will play with it out of fear.
This is totally contrary to the prevalent American self-image, where the country is benevolent, morally responsible, democratic, and kind. All the good things the self-serving, morally tainted, autocratic and cruel Chinese and Russians are not. And where the US is still the militarily strongest and diplomatically most influential country in the world. Maybe not quite the sole Superpower anymore, but first among unequals.
These perceptions are constantly supported in the mainstream US media across the wide portion of the opinion spectrum that runs from the New York Times to Fox News.
Whatever new geopolitical pattern takes shape over the coming years to replace US leadership — whether it’s Cold War II, multipolar, isolated America, or something else — it’s likely to come as a shock to many Americans. They are still living in Global Fantasyland. They still see their country as beloved and best. That’s dangerous. People often react in violent and nasty ways when their fantasies are suddenly exposed, making them look silly.
