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this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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I've always found it darkly comical that United States government policymakers, masters of the art of soft power in the first cold war, is now staffed with people who can't conceive why anyone would use soft power and always leaped to military options. They can't imagine the government of China continuing economic soft-power control over Taiwan for long-term reintegration purposes. Because US policymakers would never do such a thing themselves.
All the time I'm talking about the decay of imperial competency.
Can you talk more about it here? It's a fascinating concept really. It always seems to happen in the decline of empires without fail.
I don't have a detailed analysis or anything, but I always feel that the prior generations of imperialists, especially the immediate post-WWII, had a vision for the planet - total capitalist hegemony under the direction of the US government - and worked hard on a plan to implement it. Those planners were practical, intelligent, and willing to get their hands dirty. They projected one image of themselves - global liberators fighting against tyranny - while knowingly advancing their project in favor of the capitalists. The current generation, who grew up underneath them but not nestled in those highest places of power, bought into the image projected without understanding the reality of its operation or how it was established. They swallowed the cognitive dissonance and believed it entirely, so now they the simple act of military violence as synonymous with "freedom". They have no grasp of how the empire actually operates, they aren't advanced through anything like a meritocracy, and they can't distinguish between their own propaganda and the truth.
It really does seem more and more likely that the current crop of "leadership" in the west believes their own bullshit that they peddle to the masses for sure. A big part of it is probably the collapse of the USSR, they pre-emptively declared "victory" and haven't really bothered to maintain their imperialist project in a sustainable way because they assume there are no (or weren't even aware of) any alternatives. This would explain a lot of their actions towards China. Both begging China to help them out and also putting tariffs on them and interfering with Taiwan. They honestly seem to think that the "lesser countries" are obligated to do what the west demands and the west can just destroy them automatically. There's a similar situation with Russia there too, they assumed that their embargoes would destroy Russia because they are the wealthy and powerful west, so cutting off trade with them destroys economies. But they didn't actually bother to check what Russia's reaction would be and whether they could survive just fine without western trade. Just pure arrogance and chauvinism.
Is it really a decline in competency or just blatant arrogance? Like, they believe they can be more brazen and do whatever they want without pushback because they've been the world hegemon for decades
Is that not a decline in competency?