As the anthropologist Wade Davis said, the United States never stood down after World War II. He said, “The United States, virtually a demilitarized nation on the eve of the Second World War, never stood down in the wake of victory. To this day, American troops are deployed in 150 countries. Since the 1970s, China has not once gone to war; the U.S. has not spent a day at peace.”
WWII
In truth, World War II didn't end in 1945, it just ended in Europe. World War II kept going from 1939-1991 and the Nazis won in the end. They just merged with the western allies, like McDonnell Douglas and Boeing. Nazis went on to command NATO, to build weapons for the Americans, and to run West Germany and now the EU. If you read Mein Kampf, Hitler's main enemy was always communists and Slavs, and America took up his cause, along with a lot of his crew.
The western allies, in fact, finished Hitler's program of getting Jews out of Europe by dumping them (and white guilt) onto Palestine. As Sneha Krishnan said, “The displacement of European guilt for the Holocaust onto the Palestinian people is maybe the most significant imperial sleight of hand in our times. Real antisemites sit safe in their whiteness, pointing fingers at a population being genocided, egging on another atrocity.” The only thing I'd add is that this is the second most significant sleight of hand. The greatest sleight of hand was hiding the American Empire entirely, and pretending like they occupied and invaded places benignly. The truth is that World War II continued for colored people, and the white supremacists that inspired the Nazis won in the end.
'After' World War II, France massacred Algerians and Vietnamese, the UK put Kenyans in concentration camps, and the Europeans kept doing Nazi shit, absolved now because Hitler died for their sins. America—a tax evasion scheme for slave-holders—came to the rescue of the 'old world' as the arch imperialist Churchill predicted. America took up the mantle of killing communists so fervently that Hitler would be thrilled. The truth is that Hitler really wasn't a European anomaly. He was just the last honest European. As Aimé Césaire said, “At bottom, what [white men] cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself … it is the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the n — of Africa.” But I digress.
'After' World War II, America took over Western Europe (the worst Europe), its foreign bases and colonies, and even its wars, like the French oppression of Vietnam, and the Nazi fight against communism. Zionists became honorary White people, so long as they largely left Europe, genocided someone else, and guarded their gas. Every nation that tried to raise their head got couped and attacked mercilessly until they became permanently sanctioned or capital colonized again. They called this phase of literally world war the 'Cold' War because that's how they feel about colored people. But southern blood ran hot and red.
After World War II finally ended in 1991—when the USSR fell quite peacefully—the US took credit and declared victory for themselves. Francis Fukuyama said it was the 'end of history'. He said, “The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism.” Or as the Wicked Witch of the West said about capitalism, “there is no alternative.” And, indeed, this seemed entirely plausible. Just a few mopping up operations, and then blue jeans and rock music into the flying car future.
Commies
For a while America filled the mop bucket with the blood of its own sons, but after student protests they had to end the draft. After Vietnam, America could no longer just field a large army whenever they wanted to. Increasingly, like the British Empire, they had to rely on local proxies and pawns. So the CIA-heavy military outsourced conquest and chaos to corrupt local elites, or created them from whole cloth like the 'Israelis'. It was classic divide and conquer, using bribes, manipulation, threats, and coups to corrupt governments and destabilize regions. This was all disguised as 'peacemaking', but as the Quran told and foretold, “When they are told, ‘Do not cause corruption in the land,’ they say, ‘We are only promoters of peace.”
As the cold wars froze, America left a trail of divided countries and ruined hopes. Nations just lifting their head from under European colonialism were brutally smashed down by America, and entire nations like 'Israel' were created to keep their regions divided. New boss, same as the old boss. As America began running out of imperial energy, the world froze into a divided Korea, a divided Palestine, a divided USSR, and a (slightly) divided China. These are still the fault lines of White Empire to this day. This is what they broke, and this is where it breaks. Just look around. As Mao Tse-Tung said then, “Imperialism is afraid of China and of the Arabs. Israel and Formosa [Taiwan] are bases of imperialism in Asia. You are the front gate of the great continent, and we are the rear. They created Israel for you, and Formosa for us.” Mao is long dead, but This is still happening.
At this point, you might notice my bent towards communism, or at least lack of animus. I don't posit two evil empires in the White and Red, no, I like communism and think the bad guys won in the end. It's indeed not coincidental that most anti-colonial movements were either socialist or had socialisty policies (I'm using the terms 'socialism' and 'communism' interchangeably here). For many countries, home-brewed communism was the way out of colonialism. Capitalism just meant being rented rather than owned by western capitalists, who literally had all the capital. Communism let colonized people seize the means of production, and rapidly industrialize like no other system, ever. As Branko Milanovic said, “Communism was a system that enabled poor and colonized, or quasi colonized countries to effect a social revolution– break the power of landlords, impose equality of genders– & create conditions for the development of autochthonous or domestic capitalism.”
What Milanovic calls 'autochthonous or domestic capitalism,' however, such countries would just call 'socialism with [local] characteristics'. As Deng Xiaoping (Mao's successor) said, “It is wrong to maintain that a market economy exists only in capitalist society and that there is only [a] “capitalist” market economy. Why can't we develop a market economy under socialism? Developing a market economy does not mean practising capitalism. While maintaining a planned economy as the mainstay of our economic system, we are also introducing a market economy. But it is a socialist market economy.” But I digress.
The point is that what America called 'the free world' or 'free markets' was really colonization in new rhetorical dress. Joining this 'trade' and 'security' network was really agreeing to be exploited, and to pay for your own occupation (re: especially Australia). Vassals (now called 'allies') were integrated into the Empire's economic agenda as suppliers of resources and labor, and paid imperial tribute by buying US currency and treasuries. As fancy French inequality mansplainer Thomas Piketty said recently, “Bottom line: rich countries pretend to be in favour of fair & open markets, devlopment for all etc. but in practice the way financial markets are organized & regulated leads to an enormous income transfer from global South to global North, year after year & growing over time.”
This has long been obvious and spoken about by people in the Dirty South since the beginning. That giant sucking sound draining our human and natural resources was the same sound we've heard for centuries, which is why I call it one differentiated White Empire. The capital just changes capitals and flags and keeps profiteering. Under different lying ideologies, but always the same stealing, and killing at the center of it. What they called Christendom just became secular HumanRights™ and Freedom©, none of which they actually believe in. The snake just changed state religions like skins and kept slithering. Same shit, different day, as my historical thesis ends and begins.
Because America could not field its own (large) armies after Vietnam, they had to resort to CIA corruption and skulduggery. They learned how to game the 'liberal democracy' the British left us as a Trojan Horse to ensure constant instability of governance, so capital could reign. They trapped former colonies in IMF/World Bank enforced debt traps, paper chains that bound all the same. And this was all enforced by sieges (the correct word for unilateral sanctions), enforced by 'international' bodies (colonization by committee), and constant wars (the correct word for interventions), ideally fought by local proxies. It was all at arms length, just 'show me the money.'
This was all covered up by the rhetorical tricks I've just discussed, among many others. The 'free world', the 'rules-based order', the 'international community', the 'developed world'. Or the latest incantation, 'democracies vs authoritarians.' That which must never be named has so many names. To paraphrase Keyzer Soze, the greatest trick the white devil ever pulled was convincing the world it didn't exist. But then, just like that (historically speaking), it was gone.
9/11
I honestly don't know what the fuck happened on 9/11, but America got kicked in two of its three testicles in the middle of the schoolyard. It got hit in its financial (World Trade Center), military (Pentagon), and almost its political (the Capitol, reportedly) jewels. After this very public humiliation, America had to re-establish dominance, by finding someone smaller and throwing them against a wall. So they invaded Afghanistan. Then they invaded unrelated Iraq for good measure, just to show everyone they could do whatever the fuck they wanted. And yet they met their fate on the path taken to avoid, even faster for their eagerness. America responded to getting symbolically blown up on 9/11 by blowing themselves up even more. With the souls of dead millions and displaced tens of millions on their conscience, if they had one. All these wars exploded in their face, just on a delayed fuse.
America lost Afghanistan and had to humiliatingly retreat. They lost Iraq and, after being told to leave, are getting being shown the door with increasing violence (shout out PMF). All the wars they waged to establish dominance have been lost, and now it's all coming together. They're getting kicked out of Niger and Ukraine as we speak. They're being exposed as weak and genocidal in 'Israel' and have completely lost naval supremacy in the Red Sea. If you fight wars to establish dominance and lose those wars, you've lost dominance. If not A, then not B. The signal is taking a while to reach the imperial brain. but historically speaking, it's quite plain. The capital of White Empire was sacked in 2001, and the rest of the century was just a lot of violent flailing on the way to the historical dustbin.
You can see the decline in our times because American troops have simply stopped showing up. They scream and yell about how X or Y is the next Hitler, but never put their military where their mouth is. This is new. It changed in my lifetime. In Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s, America was still able to field armies. In fact, for a brief moment they could fund wars without conscription or raising taxes, basically a blank check which they used exclusively to commit atrocities. 9/11 made recruiting possible and the general debt slavery of their population made it necessary.
For a brief period after 9/11, the 'faith and credit' of the then unipolar Empire was good. They could get UN resolutions and fund the dissolution of nations on debt that other countries happily bought up, even at near zero interest rates. Imperial credit was still good. America also, immediately after 9/11, had the faith of most of the world. Their relentless post-World War II propaganda about being the 'good guys' still worked. As I said, America's faith and credit was good, and the war machine could execute their wildest imaginations. Which were unfortunately just nightmares thought up by draft dodgers that never sacrificed anything themselves.
In the early 2000s, America was able to move massive amounts of men and matériel thousands of miles away, for the most flimsy reasons. As someone Reddited, “The most terrifying capability of the United States military remains the capacity to deploy a fully operational Burger King to any terrestrial theater of operations in under 24 hours.” In the those gory days, America could still organize a bang-up murder tour of the Orient on short notice, and the old colonial crew were all invited. Early late America was definitely able to project power, and Bush II felt confident enough to declare 'Mission Accomplished.' This was, however, a premature ejaculation. They had just blown their load spectacularly.
Casio
As the Taliban told the Americans, “you may have the watches, but we have the time.” After 20 years of fighting and trillions of dollars in self-looting, all the kings horsepower and all the kings men replaced the Taliban with the Taliban and called it a win. Post 9/11, America wanted to wage a decisive war to reestablish dominance and they lost in Afghanistan. They tried to cover it up by starting another war in Iraq and lost that too. Then they tried to cover that up by starting another war in Syria, and another war in Ukraine, and then across Africa, and now in Palestine. And now they're losing all over the place. The cover-up has exceeded the crime most tragically and dramatically.
The Americans fled Afghanistan in ignominious defeat, stealing the country's foreign reserves and starving its children on the way out. They're being kicked out of Iraq now, by the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). America didn't get regime change in Syria. They made Russia stronger and destroyed democracy in Ukraine, which doesn't even have elections now. They're being kicked out of Niger. And, in the pièce de résistance, they're destroying any vestige of legitimacy with the imperial genocide of Gaza. Nobody connects these dots because you're not supposed to. The entire western propaganda system is based on the 'end of history'. The news is just a bunch of disconnected events, like why are these people mad at us? let's bomb them, over and over again. Nobody says the Empire has no clothes, but I'll say it. If 9/11 marked the symbolic defeat of America, Afghanistan marked their military defeat. What we're witnessing now is their long retreat, leaving scorched earth as far as the eye can see.
The Long Retreat
This is the final incarnation of White Empire, rage, raging against the dying of the white. Impotent, blinded, raging like Odyssey's wounded cyclops, screaming 'do you know who my father is?' America today cannot field its own troops, it cannot make enough munitions, it is by all historical accounts a spend force. But that doesn't stop it from trying to repeat the old gory days, this time as a farce.
Early late America cannot stand on its own anymore, it has to hide behind corrupt proxies. Thus they're fighting to the last Ukrainian against Russia, the last 'Israeli' against Arabs and Muslims, and Taiwanese are next on the chopping block. America keep throwing 'allies' in front of them because their own ass is too weak now. The American Empire is actually in full-blown retreat, disguised as a world tour.
You wouldn't know this from the western media, but consider the source. As I've said, the western media is based upon the philosophical premise of the 'end of history', so everything happening now is just a bunch of disconnected events. If you just think through a brief history and your own memory, however, you can see that America could barely field troops in World War II, could not win in Asia, and has now had to abandon the Middle East and even Europe. We saw them enter Afghanistan in stealth bombers and then get kicked out by guys in Toyota Hiluxes. We saw them threaten to sanction and wunderwaffen Russia into submission, only for Russia to get even stronger.
After seeing imperial proxies beaten everywhere, especially in Ukraine, the actual strength of White Empire is becoming plain. They're not strong at all. They're weak. It's not that they don't want to fight, it's that they can't. To invert Teddy Roosevelt, they are speaking loudly and carrying a small stick. It's not just that White Empire is in decline, it's in full-assed retreat.
Author
Indrajit Samarajiva is a Sri Lankan geopolitical analyst. The themes he generally writes about are collapse, because, in his own words: "I can both observe it and my country is generally ahead of the dismal curve, climate change (which I realize now is a symptom of the more general collapse), White Empire (what I call the American empire which has all the old colonizers as vassals), philosophy, politics, parenting, and whatever goes through my head." He can be reached at .
