The World Is Tired Of United States’ Wars – OpEd

Greg Pence

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The fate of wars has shown that consensus-building lead to more power and consensus at the international level is only possible with the support of allies behind a great power as a leader. Of course, consensus building is impacted by factors such as ideological influence, the ability to ensure the security of the allies in order to maintain their international peace and stability, and finally the resolution of international crises based on the interests of the allies. In other words, what brings a great power the necessary capabilities for consensus building is nothing but international credit. This credit rests upon the rules of the international/liberal order.

Consensus building succeeds when it can manage the interests of allies to serve the interests of the great power by creating a collective will. In the past, with the help of Europe, the United States controlled and managed the consensus-building industry against Russia and China, and also controlled the world’s public opinion. In the consensus-building industry that was formed after the Second World War, the United States together with NATO became the world’s largest military power and was able to form the world’s largest economic power along with G7 countries. American consensus-building became a concept for political, economic, cultural, and military influence over other countries and societies. It transformed the international system into a global system based on American values and interests with greater mastery and dominance in diplomatic affairs.

Consensus in the economic sector also turned the United States into an international economic power that still has no serious competitors in the world. By creating a global value chain in the economic and financial sectors, the US was able to lay the foundation for monetary and economic dominance through the Bretton Woods organizations. The economic consensus gave the US effective access to international credits and the foreign exchange market. During the 1970s, the Bretton Woods system allowed the United States to cover approximately 70 percent of its balance-of-payments deficits through the dual processes of gold profitability and debt financing. Financing this debt enabled the United States to undertake heavy military spending abroad and “foreign commitments” and to maintain considerable flexibility in domestic economic policy.

But the current United States as the former world leader has lost its credibility among its allies. In other words, the strategy of Afghanistanizing the world and humiliating others have cost the US its allies. The first thing that the European allies lost in reaching a consensus with the US was the right to have sovereignty over their own destiny.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most important regional partners of the US in the Middle East which had been promised the leadership of Arab countries in return for supplying the energy resources of Washington. The unwritten strategic pact between the United States and Saudi Arabia, which survived 15 presidents and seven kings, the Arab oil embargo, two Persian Gulf wars, and the September 11 terrorist attacks, is now collapsing completely. Earlier in the 2020 US presidential election campaign, Biden called the Saudi government of low social value and refused to talk to Saudi Crown Prince Bin Salman. As usual, he remembered Saudi Arabia when the world was involved in the energy crisis and the dramatic increase in oil prices.

But by bypassing the United States and turning its back on the promises made to the White House during Biden’s visit to the country, Saudi Arabia chose OPEC+, Kremlin, and Beijing to Washington. During the OPEC+ meeting, despite the repeated requests of the United States to increase the production and supply ceiling in order to reduce the oil price, the Saudis decided to reduce their oil production. This is while the US can no longer punish Saudi Arabia by not selling weapons, nor can they impose an oil embargo on this country in the midst of the war in Ukraine.

With the departure of Trump and the arrival of Biden and the strategic confusion in American foreign policy, two big things have happened. First, the United States’ loss of control over its allies, and second, US partners’ attempt to establish relations with other powers. The Wall Street Journal, in an article on October 24, has described a lack of trust among the allies as the reason for these issues. Currently, the Ukraine war has kept the two sides of the transatlantic united. In fact, the world has become a venue for great powers to manipulate crises, but the United States is losing its power to intensify or resolve the crises.

That is why not only the United States cannot end the war in Yemen and disband al-Qaeda in the Middle East and North Africa, it cannot manage the energy crisis or the war in Ukraine. In the coming years, fewer and fewer countries would want to be recognized as a strategic ally of the US. Saudi Arabia is a case in point that simply rejected the US’s request to stabilize the energy markets. This is not only the result of the decline of the United States but also the effect of the ongoing change in the world order.

Every actor in every part of the world has now realized that to meet its needs they must get rid of Thucydides’ trap and establish a new system other than the liberal world order. That is why China, India, and Saudi Arabia are looking for regional security alliances instead of NATOism and the policy of peace first rather than war first. In other words, the measures that Beijing, Moscow, Delhi, and Riyadh are taking demonstrate that Washington is not an order-making and stability-creating actor anymore. This means that America basically no longer has the possibility and authority to determine examples of normal behavior, and if it tries to do so, it will face non-compliance.