Author: Rong ping source: official account: Rong Ping (id:rongping898) has been authorized to reprint
Finally, some people dare to put on the table the unprecedented division that the United States is experiencing! According to the British Sunday Times, former US State Secretary Kissinger said in an exclusive interview with the newspaper that the Vietnam War had plunged the United States into a downward spiral of political polarization, and the United States today is much more divided than the Vietnam War.
In the early 1970s, there was still a little possibility for the two parties to cooperate. Now these are over. Every current government faces the unremitting hostility of the opposition.
——Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
The Vietnam War was the biggest political ecological split faced by the United States since the formation of the two party system in the 1940s. As a result of division, President Nixon, who laid the foundation for the victory of the cold war, became the first and only president to resign during his term of office. Of course, the premise is that Biden, who is plagued by inflation, will not follow in his footsteps.
The United States started the Vietnam war with the help of the Republican Party. The reason is that during the Pacific War, the Pentagon decided that the United States was going to fight a protracted war, so the arms dealers went all out to produce weapons. However, they did not expect that the Japanese battlefield, which would have consumed a lot of ammunition, was suddenly cut off by the atomic bomb, and Japan surrendered, so that the stockpiles of these warmongers were piled up and suffered serious losses.
What should I do?
It’s simple: continue to empty ammunition stockpiles with another or several large-scale wars.
Do not doubt the influence of US arms dealers on the White House at that time. After the outbreak of Pearl Harbor incident, US arms production resources were fully integrated. On the one hand, large enterprises annexed small enterprises and exchanged their needs with other peers to form a strong military industrial complex. On the other hand, the traditional revolving door greatly deepened the interest relationship between the US military high-level and the military industrial complex through World War II, So the former naturally became the spokesman of the latter in Washington!
The position of the US military in the US political ecology at that meeting is completely unmatched by the current US military. After all, the expansion of military power after the victory of the war has existed in ancient and modern times. While President Roosevelt was still alive, he was able to suppress this group of proud soldiers and valiant generals by virtue of the accumulated prestige of turning the tide of the economic crisis and the Pacific War. No one could hold him down after he died.
The outbreak of the Korean War was due to the independence of the US military headquarters. Therefore, no one can stop the arms dealers and the military from concocting war consumption stocks!
In this regard, Chairman Mao once said when receiving Vietnamese delegates visiting China:
The Vietnam war cost $120billion and lasted 11 years. An American soldier who can’t speak Vietnamese, how many kilometers away from the United States, ran to Vietnam to die, can it last? The reason why it can fight for 11 years is that the arms dealers are trying to consume the B-52 and so on.
But the Democratic Party is firmly opposed to shifting the military focus back to Asia. In terms of U.S. strategic interests, the forefront of the U.S. – Soviet confrontation lies in Europe. In the Berlin Wall, the U.S. military should not invest in other regions on a large scale. The failure of the last Korean War has reduced the U.S. influence in Europe. Specifically, many western countries have chosen to establish diplomatic relations with China or change their hostile policies towards China. If the Vietnam War is lost again, it is not only a question of whether the influence will be reduced, But the United States is very likely to lose the initiative to fight for hegemony!
In terms of the interests of the democratic parties and political parties, the Marshall plan aimed at assisting Europe is their political heritage, and the shift of strategic focus to Asia will undoubtedly hinder the advancement of the plan.
The Republican Party and the military interest groups behind him do not fail to understand this truth, but the political risk of detonating a war in Europe is too high. It is not easy to operate and play the doomsday nuclear war every minute. The responsibility is too big to bear. Moreover, the Soviet Union and NATO members may not be willing to fight.
Asia is different. They think that China, which plays a certain leading role in the region, has a high threshold for war and usually does not easily intervene in war. Second, it has no nuclear weapons,
It is conducive to the United States’ full control of the situation.
Because the strength of military interest groups is too large, the Democratic Party, let alone stop it. Even during the two Democratic administrations of Kennedy and Johnson, it had to expand the scale of the war to meet the demands of arms dealers and the military for dumping inventory.
The Watergate incident gave the Democratic Party a chance to fight back. Finally, Nixon stepped down, and the Democratic Party succeeded in the general election three years later. The infighting has driven the president away. It’s really the first time that a big girl has been in a sedan chair. It can be seen that the contradictions between the two parties have intensified to such an extent that they can’t be further intensified. However, this is also a manifestation of the progress of the American political ecology. After all, people are still alive!
But even so, the two parties still reached a consensus on the issue of easing relations with China to defeat the Soviet Union, and are willing to work together to integrate their own government resources for this goal.
However, today’s US bipartisan politics is much more divided than that during the Vietnam War. No one can find a lubricant that can bond the two parties and discard prejudices. Their opposition to each other is no longer for the sake of national interests, but simply to make trouble for the other party and enhance the competitiveness of the party, that is, to oppose for the sake of struggle, to oppose for the sake of opposition, and to oppose for the sake of identity!
The most typical example is the changeable attitude of the two parties on financial policy.
When trump was printing money, the Democratic Party said that too much money had been paid and that interest rates should be raised. But Biden’s efforts to pay money since he took office have gone beyond that. Now it is the turn of the Republican Party to raise interest rates, but Biden has no intention of stopping. Who is responsible for the cash flowing back to the bank and the stock market after the interest rate increase?
Now, the U.S. economy is like a wild horse running on the road of inflation. In February 2021, the first month Biden took office, the U.S. inflation was 2%, 2.6% in March, 4.2% in April, 5.4% in May, 5.4% in June, 7% in December, 7.5% in January, 7.9% in February, 8% in March and 8.6% in May. This time, the democratic party finally woke up and decided to raise interest rates again, but it was too late.
In the early morning of June 15 local time, the Federal Reserve started to raise interest rates for the third time, adding 75 basis points at a time, the highest in nearly 30 years.
In this regard, the American academic circles pessimistically believe that this antipyretic against high inflation in the United States will curb consumer consumption and combat the employment situation in the United States, and is becoming a poison to the future American economy. Bloomberg even bluntly said that the United States is about to face an economic recession. Although the U.S. economic recession is the root cause of structural imbalances, the infighting between the two parties for opposition has exacerbated the recession risk to some extent.
In addition, there are differences on foreign strategies. The Republican Party wants to unite with Russia to oppose China. The Democratic Party is both anti Russia and Anti China, but the priority of anti Russia must be placed above Anti China Affairs. As a result, we also saw that the Democratic Party’s Anti China arrogance was very fierce, and its anti Russia arrogance was even more fierce. It was intended to ignite the war in Ukraine by backhand, which meant to make Russia repeat the mistakes of the former Soviet Union in Ukraine. It was just unexpected that it was playing it off. The more Russia fought, the more money it made. After 100 days of sanctions, Russia earned 93billion euros, which made the Democratic Party unable to stand down.
What worries Kissinger even more is that this great division in the United States exists not only between the two parties, but also within the two parties and among all walks of life in the United States.
For example, on the issue of tariffs: the elimination of import tariffs on China is a matter of great profit to the American economy and American residents, but the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have their own small 99. On the surface, the Republican Party’s clamour for the elimination of tariff barriers is a sign of weakness towards China, a major event that has humiliated the United States in the international community, and has dragged a group of hawks everywhere to put pressure on the Democratic Party.
And what is the truth?
The mid-term election in November is approaching, and the Republican Party is gaining the advantage. Key states such as Maine, Texas and Nevada are all turning right. As long as the inflation in the United States can continue, the Republican Party is bound to win the mid-term election in an all-round way, so as to gain the overall dominance of Congress.
The Democratic Party hopes to abolish the tariff on China. At least Biden hopes to do so. The reason they give is that abolishing the tariff on China will help ease the inflationary pressure.
The reality is that there is no solution to U.S. inflation. The elimination of import tariffs on China is a temporary solution, which can reduce the inflationary pressure in the United States in a short time. In the long run, it still needs the courage of the United States to survive. However, this is enough for Biden, because if the crisis can be postponed until after the mid-term elections and the Democratic Party can survive smoothly, his political life and that of his family will be saved.
But the abolition of tariffs on China is not only a split between the two parties, but also within the Democratic Party.
The White House faction headed by trade representative Dai Qi holds opposition. On the one hand, Dai Qi, who takes the lead, is of Chinese descent, and everyone knows the fanatical mentality of converts. On the other hand, those people in the White House faction are reclusive, only care about the strategic interests or national security of big countries, and turn a deaf ear to economic issues.
However, the State Council faction headed by finance minister Yellen and Commerce Minister ramondo cannot think so. When there are major problems in the national economy, the government departments are the number one responsible person. If they don’t want to carry the blame, they should do everything possible and put everything into practice.
US trade representative Dai Qi
Another example is the energy issue: the Republican Party is the spokesman of the fossil energy interest group, and the Democratic Party is the representative of the new energy interest group.
Among the fossil energy interest groups, there are contradictions between the traditional fossil energy group and the shale oil energy group.
The division of new energy interest groups is even greater. The industry tends to use lithium batteries as the power source, because the lithium battery technology is very mature, and the supply chains of related industries such as the automobile industry are all built around lithium batteries. Easy replacement of power sources means that the whole industry chain has to be torn down and rebuilt.
The elite tend to find a new path in the fuel cell of hydrogen energy, and form an industrial alliance with Europe, Japan and South Korea. Meanwhile, the US Department of energy launched the clean hydrogen center project of US $8billion this month.
Their reasons are also very sufficient: in the field of lithium battery vehicles, China has already mastered the advantages of the whole industry chain from lithium ore raw materials mining to batteries to finished vehicles. The reason why Tesla has been able to sell well in the world through lower and lower prices in recent years is that its Shanghai Linjiang super factory relies on the advantages of China’s whole industry chain to keep the cost low enough.
Therefore, it is meaningless for the United States to continue to invest money and technology in the field of lithium battery power, unless the hollow manufacturing industry in the United States has a full industrial chain, but is it possible?
Instead of following China’s lead and waiting for the auto industry chain to be swept away, it would be better for Soha to change lanes and overtake with a hydrogen fuel cell. If it succeeds, it will be a great achievement that will benefit the future.
Like the above similar examples, there are so many key industries in the United States that there are too many to enumerate!
In other words, the split in the United States today is not just a split in the political ecology of the two parties, but a systematic split from the top to the bottom in the United States, from the government to the business community and then to the society. Kissinger was naturally helpless, because he personally put the United States on the top of the world. Many years later, he witnessed the loss of the United States from the altar. There is no greater pain in the world!
Seeing him rise from a tall building, seeing him feast guests and seeing his building collapse is perhaps Kissinger’s most sincere feeling at this moment!
The legendary situation of a generation will eventually grow old with the withering of years.
The one who grew old with him was the United States of America, which had united as one in the civil war, World War I, World War II and the cold war.