by Backgrounder on an increasingly important area.The US is not hanging on in Afghanistan (Central Asia) to spread "freedom and democracy" or protect human rights. The interest there is strategic, as it must to justify the cost in blood and treasure.Indeed, the US is lot more active in Eurasia than most people realize, since most of what they hear about is Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, and the Middle East.For example, the recent kerfuffle in the "news" over Russian "bounties" is directed not only at Russia but also to undercut the president's determination to withdraw from Afghanistan.Withdrawal is not in the strategic interest of the shadow government that maintains policy across administrations and feeds the institutions on which it it based. The "shadow government" well
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Backgrounder on an increasingly important area.
The US is not hanging on in Afghanistan (Central Asia) to spread "freedom and democracy" or protect human rights. The interest there is strategic, as it must to justify the cost in blood and treasure.
Indeed, the US is lot more active in Eurasia than most people realize, since most of what they hear about is Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, and the Middle East.
For example, the recent kerfuffle in the "news" over Russian "bounties" is directed not only at Russia but also to undercut the president's determination to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Withdrawal is not in the strategic interest of the shadow government that maintains policy across administrations and feeds the institutions on which it it based. The "shadow government" well characterizes the bureaucracy that maintains the trajectory of government and policy through changing administrations. There has been little change in this trajectory since the end of WWII, despite President Eisenhower's warning about it as he left office.
"Shadow government" is in my view a better term to characterize this phenomenon than the "deep state." However, this term has already been undermined by association with conspiracy theory that is tagged with that name. (Donald Trump calls it the "swamp," and Steve Bannon characterizes it as the "administrative state.")
They are correct in holding that the swamp must be drained for meaningful policy change not only to happen but also to persist. Bannon's term in government was short, and the president has faced an onslaught of opposition seeking to either remove him or neuter him. While I don't think either were suitable for the task, at least they recognized the problem and sought to address it, so far unsuccessfully. There is no one else doing so in any kind of meaningful way, nor is there either a vision to actualize or a plan to proceed.
Based on the "Red Scare," the shadow government has managed to preserve the policy since the Truman administration " Even today.
Notice, for example, how Secretary of State Mike Pompeo regularly refers to "Chinese Communist Party" as the enemy, and Vladimir Putin is typically referred to as "ex-KGB." See for example, the book review in Foreign Policy, How Putin and the KGB Took Control of Russia—and Duped the West: An important new book details the carefully calculated rise of a modern-day tsar (June 2020). It appears that this is not being offered for its informational content as its persuasive value in demonizing the Russian "regime."
Eurasia is now the battleground from the vantage of the US ruling elite and the shadow government that maintains policy that it suits it. The opposition from the shadow government's vantage is "KGB Russia," "Communist China," and "Islamic terrorism."
This is all zeroed in on Eurasia and Central Asia as a pivot point in the unfolding historical dialectic of who is going to control the Eurasian land mass, Halford Mackinder's "world island" as the "geographical pivot of history."
This is the turf of Russia and China, traditional land powers. To control this pivot, the US, a sea power, has to submit Russia and China to regime change favorable to the US or attempt to prevent them from gaining control by sewing conflict in the region and creating chaos, since getting involved in a land war in Asia with peer adversaries would risk defeat.
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