For the American Empire, it's now or never

May you live in interesting times, an ancient Chinese curse supposedly says.

Must be true, because we sure do!

Kinda unnerving to see all those headlines day after day, for months on end, about how Putin will, for sure, probably invade Ukraine any day now, maybe.

In the meantime, we’ll ship them hundreds of millions in missiles and small arms… don’t worry, we’re lending them the money to buy this stuff.

Not that we’re planning to actually defend the schmucks from Russia in the event our dreams of invasion come true. Are you kidding?

That’s been the US-NATO game for the past few months, and it’s no wonder the NATO allies are getting nervous. The Big Dog is in grave danger of losing a significant number of the pack. The collapse of NATO is the end of the US Empire in and of itself.

Then there’s the Iran file. We had a reasonable agreement in place to curtail Iran’s nuke ambitions, but thanks to the goading of our Israeli allies, Trump nixed that deal. The Israeli’s still love to talk about Iran being weeks from a bomb, but after saying that for thirty-plus years, they don’t even believe it themselves. Nor are they planning to do anything about it, blood-curdling rhetoric aside. Israel wouldn’t last a week if real (ie not homemade by Gaza rocketeers) missiles were incoming at the rate of hundreds per day.

Don’t forget we gotta take on China at the same time as we’re putting Russia and Iran in their place. The military-industrial sector of the economy, the folks who fund all those brilliant think tanks forever advocating more war and more weapon sales, are all in for ramping up confrontation with China. At the same time, uber-hedgies managing trillions of dollars, guys like Larry Fink, are hunky dory doing business with the commies, so don’t count on the universal support of the billionaire class.

In summary, the American Empire as we have known it is over.

Numero uno no more.

Only America's war-profiteers don’t know it yet.

They truly believe their upcoming triumph over Putin will cement their place as the "Exceptional Nation" for generations to come.