I highly recommend this major piece of geopolitical analysis in spite of his record of writing for mainstream and liberal media outlets.
Patrick Smith is the author of “Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century.” He was the International Herald Tribune’s bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote “Letter from Tokyo” for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications.I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about this writer, but examining his record of articles posted on Salon, I am impressed with his astuteness and honesty in spite of what I identify as a liberal writing style. Such a style is characterized by a tendency to use misleading and bland words that provide cover for concepts which otherwise would serve to uncover the reality of ruling classes. However, if for no other reason, such a style is a necessary qualification in order to write for any mainstream or quasi-mainstream media company. I am referring to the use of a figurehead leader (Obama or Kerry) or nation (US or Russians) as a way to hide the reality of an action or policy decided by a particular ruling class; also "neoconservatives" or "neocons" which I regard as a cover for Zionist influence
Put this in the larger context: With the prospect of ending three and a half decades of pointless hostility within reach, this is the moment to be battering Russia as near to a pulp as possible with sanctions, market interventions to its disadvantage, and who can tell what on the military side in Ukraine? You start to think Washington simply cannot help itself....Still, as Smith so well demonstrates in this analysis, he does look below the surface announcements of governments and media reporting, and with the help of his informed sources makes some very convincing arguments of what is really happening. In this piece he weaves together bits and pieces of evidence which, for me, ends up constructing a most dangerous scenario: one in which a dominant Empire, armed with nuclear weapons, refuses to accept the growing reality of a world in which it is being challenged by several competing capitalist-gangs, and gives every indication that it will not tolerate any rivals. However, in the end Smith, true to his liberal perspective, trivializes this nightmarish scenario by reducing it into a worry about who are going to be winners and losers:
This century’s winners and losers are not yet clearly marked — I have to preserve my optimism on this point — but with each passing event, each mistake, who is fated for which side becomes a little more evident.
