This is not exactly a new thesis, but it bears repeating.
The seeds of the chaos were planted some 25 years ago, when the Berlin Wall Collapsed. Since the rationale for the large and growing military apparatus during the Cold War years was the “threat of communism,” U.S. citizens celebrated the collapse of the Wall as the end of militarism and the dawn of “peace dividends”—a reference to the benefits that, it was hoped, many would enjoy in the United States as a result of a reorientation of part of the Pentagon’s budget toward non-military social needs.The author continues on in the article to expertly develop the thesis of a voracious military-industrial complex and adds Israeli-Zionist territorial ambitions to the mix. I agree with all of his arguments, however they are not sufficient to explain the policies of the US-led Empire.
But while the majority of the U.S. citizens celebrated the prospects of what appeared to be imminent “peace dividends,” the powerful interests vested in the expansion of military/security spending felt threatened. Not surprisingly, these influential forces moved swiftly to safeguard their interests in the face of the “threat of peace.”
The Empire's capitalist elite who determine those policies are also concerned about acquiring control of rapidly diminishing resources, particularly fossil fuels, needed to keep their giant wealth-sucking capitalist machinery fueled for more growth, or at least, to sustain it until some mythical new energy source is obtained. Thus, they have an imperial agenda to acquire as much control of these resources as they can, and they will attempt to subvert or attack any opposition, which includes the rapidly developing capitalist gang known as the BRICs, that stands in their way. This, in addition to the impending catastrophic climate destabilization which their system is causing, is what makes today's world so dangerous.
