Superpower suicide

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Source: Jesuit Institute South Africa

'Superpower suicide' is a striking phrase used by the historian of totalitarianism, Professor Timothy Snyder. He argues the United States is in the process of committing 'superpower suicide', thanks to the Trump administration's geopolitical blunders. Two egregious examples are the unwinnable war with Iran and the inexplicable alienation of its traditional allies in Europe.

It occurs to me that the United States is not alone. Witness the fatal self-harm that Putin's Russia is inflicting upon itself, by hubristically taking on Ukraine in a war which Russia is losing and which is destroying its economy.

The parallelisms between the USA and the Russian Federation are instructive. Both have had the image of their overwhelming military might humiliatingly trashed by lesser but highly motivated and ingenious adversaries. This has been a stupendously costly lesson in dollars for the United States and in rubles and recruits for Russia.

One hopes this is a sobering lesson for other would-be aggressors. I imagine that China's Xi Jinping is paying close attention as he ponders an invasion of Taiwan. What he notices happening in the Strait of Hormuz and the Black Sea must surely give him pause.

Snyder also mentions an economic ingredient to the US suicide overdose, namely the attempt to put the clock back on energy. One of the most unbelievable pieces of news recently has to be the Trump administration's payment of over a billion dollars to a French energy company not to build a planned wind farm in the US.

Incredible, but there is a logic to this lunacy. It follows from the administration's 'drill baby drill' policy, and it is also an expression of Trump's animus against renewables and his quaint belief that he can leverage the US's leadership in the extraction of shale oil to maintain global economic dominance. The saying attributed to Sheikh Ahmed Yamani comes to mind: "The Stone Age didn't come to an end because we ran out of stones!"

Putin, too, made the mistake of overreliance on hydrocarbons. He built up a vast war chest through the sale of oil and gas, and he calculated that it would be sufficient to fund a short 'special military operation'. However, after almost five years, warfare itself has evolved to the point where long-range drones have made significant portions of what is a very inflammable Russian industry vulnerable to attack. Hence, that which fuels the Russian economy is literally going up in smoke.

All wars are horrible, and they often lead to further wars. Obviously, therefore, it would have been better if neither of the two had ever happened. However, it can be argued that there are a few unintended consequences of these two conflicts which offer humankind sobering and useful historical lessons.

Firstly, annexing territory in the face of determined resistance is extremely difficult in the age of drones. Israel is just beginning to discover this in Lebanon. The second is that even the greatest superpower needs allies.

The third is that if superpowers use energy as a gambit in waging war, then those affected by scarcity and price rises will naturally seek alternatives.

This double suicide of superpowers might just make the world a safer and greener place. We can but hope and pray.

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