The sinking of a pair of destroyers is unlikely to awake the US public to the fact that the US military is no longer the global monopower it was from 1989 to 2015. Which is probably why the Russians won’t bother to sink them unless it becomes absolutely necessary:
American sailors have set course for the Black Sea, off the south coast of Russia, in a move widely seen as a show of support for Ukraine, where fighting between Kiev’s forces and separatist militias has worsened in recent weeks.On Friday, a source at the Turkish foreign ministry told TASS that it had received a notification from Washington that two US warships would pass through the Bosporus straits and into the Black Sea. Under international law, Ankara controls access to the inland body of water for certain types of vessels, including navy ships.In accordance with these conventions, Turkish envoys say they “were notified through diplomatic channels 15 days ago that two US warships would enter the Black Sea. The ships will remain there until 4 May,” the unnamed official said. The journey will take the crews almost 9,000 miles from the eastern seaboard of America, near to coastal Ukraine and Russia, including the sensitive and disputed Crimean peninsula.Since then, the vessels have been named by Istanbul-based news network NTV as the USS Roosevelt, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, and the USS Donald Cook, a guided missile destroyer that was previously intercepted by Russian jets off the coast of Kaliningrad, in the Baltic Sea.The maneuver comes amid an escalating military conflict in the East of Ukraine between Kiev’s army and separatist forces in the Donbass, who are backed by Moscow. The Kremlin has described the situation as “frightening,” and has held talks this week with counterparts in Washington to “explain” the situation.
The evil architects of the neo-liberal world order know that it has failed, which is why they’re trying to rapidly erect a new one on the basis of fake diseases, not-vaccines, and movement controls.
In a recent Chatham House webinar with former British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, 97-year-old Kissinger called on the U.S. to create a balance with existing global forces, adding
“if you imagine that the world commits itself to an endless competition based on the dominance of whoever is superior at the moment, then a breakdown of the order is inevitable. And the consequences of a breakdown would be catastrophic.”
The veteran diplomat urged the U.S. to understand that not every issue has “final solutions” and warned
“if we don’t get to an understanding with China on that point, then we will be in a pre-World War One-type situation in which there are perennial conflicts that get solved on an immediate basis but one of them gets out of control at some point.”
However, the idea that the U.S. should stop imposing its will on everyone else will not be easily accepted in Washington. This is attested by the sharp rhetoric and personal insults that U.S. President Joe Biden continually levels against his Russian and Chinese counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
High-ranking Chinese official Yang Jiechi told U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on March 18 in Alaska that “the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.” Then, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi boldly said days later on March 22 during their meeting in Beijing that they “jointly safeguard multilateralism, maintain the international system with the UN at its core and the international order based on international law, while firmly opposing unilateral sanctions as well as interference in other countries’ internal affairs.”